                            IO::LockedFile

  Copyright (c) 2001-2002 Ockham Technology N.V. & Rani Pinchuk.  
  All rights reserved.  
  This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or 
  modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

DESCRIPTION
  
  In its simplistic use, the IO::LockedFile class gives us the same 
  interface of the IO::File class to files with the unique difference
  that those files are locked using the flock mechanism. Yet, the
  class provides us with the ability to use other schemes then flock.
  
  Example for the use of the class:

     use IO::LockedFile;

     # create new locked file object. $file will hold a file handle.
     # if the file is already locked, the method will not return until the
     # file is unlocked
     my $file = new IO::LockedFile(">locked1.txt");

     # when we close the file - it become unlocked.
     $file->close();

PREREQUISITES

  IO::File 
  Fcntl

INSTALLATION

  Follow the standard installation procedure for Perl modules, which is to
  type the following commands:

          perl Makefile.PL
          make
          make test
          make install

  You'll probably need to do the last as root.  

AUTHOR NOTES

  After I wrote the first version of this module that was extremely simple, 
  I found out that actually my knowledge in locking files was quite poor. 
  Yet, with the help of some great people, the module became (hopefully) 
  better. 

  This is why I would like to ask you for help when you see bugs, mistakes 
  or just if you have any suggestions or comments - please email me.

Rani Pinchuk
rani@cpan.org

