Detecting locked files in Windows

[moggs]

Hi... this should (in theory) be an easy question...

Is there any way I can detect a locked file in Windows? I've done my searches, but don't seem to have found anything positive.

The tiny little task I've been given is to zip and FTP all the data in a number of directories created by an accounting package, but it must fail (or at least warn) if any of the files are locked.

Ideas would be warmly appreciated... even just the next set of search terms!

Many thanks! Moggs

[dragonchild]

Try to see if you can take a lock on it. If you can't, it's locked.

use Fcntl ':flock';

if ( flock( $filename, LOCK_EX | LOCK_NB ) ) {
    # File is unlocked
    flock( $filename, LOCK_UN );
}
else {
    # File is locked.
}

[stiller]

by convention, ms office creates a "lockfile" whose presence tells ms office that the file is locked. The "lockfile" gets a name that relates to the original name like ~$est.doc to test.doc Also, see File locking