How to safely maintain a status file

[alex23]

On Jul 10, 6:24 am, John Nagle <na... at animats.com> wrote:
> That's because you're using the wrong approach. See how to use
> ReplaceFile under Win32:
>
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365512%28VS.85%29.aspx

I'm not convinced ReplaceFile is atomic:

"The ReplaceFile function combines several steps within a single
function. An application can call ReplaceFile instead of calling
separate functions to save the data to a new file, rename the original
file using a temporary name, rename the new file to have the same name
as the original file, and delete the original file."

About the best you can get in Windows, I think, is MoveFileTransacted,
but you need to be running Vista or later:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365241(v=vs.85).aspx

I agree with your suggestion of using something transactional that
isn't bound to later Window versions, though.