Re: File Locked after Close?

[email protected] wrote:
> 
> I'm doing the following:
> 
> open FILE, '<file.dat' || die '...';
> # Do something with FILE
> close FILE;
> system 'command file.dat'; # This fails
> 
> The last line fails even though I closed FILE.  However, if I break
> out the last line into a separate script that is run later, it runs
> fine.  Therefore, it looks like there is some kind of lock that is
> left on FILE even though I closed it.
> 
> If I open another file with the same handle, then everything works.
> For instance:
> 
> open FILE, '<file.dat' || die '...';
> # Do something with FILE
> close FILE;
> open FILE, 'another.dat' || die '...';
> system 'command file.dat'; # This works
> 
> Unfortunately this is too awkard, so I would like to avoid it.  Any
> ideas on what may be happening or a more elegant way to ensure the
> problem (lock?) doesn't occur?  If it helps, I'm using an older build
> of ActiveState Perl (sorry, don't recall the version) on a WinXP
> system, running in a DOS shell.

It may be as well to update to ActivePerl v5.8, but check what version you have with

  perl -v

It's also a good idea to check the status of the closure

  close FILE or die "Unable to close file: $!";

HTH,

Rob