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Re: savelog can lose data



Neil Schemenauer <nascheme@ucalgary.ca> writes:
>I think a better solution is to copy the data from the current
>log file and then truncate it.  There is a race condition with
>this approach.  If something is written to the log file between
>the copying and the truncating then that data will be lost.  The
>time between these two operations should be very small (echo is
>built into bash).  Attached is a patch that makes savelog do
>this (against slink).
...
>+		# there is a race here
>+		cp "$filename" "$newname.0"
>+		echo -n > "$filename"

Using echo is unnecessary.  You can truncate the file with the command
	   	 > "$filename"


I expect you could reduce the probability of losing data by 
(1) doing the copy and truncate in a separate process, with large
    negative niceness
(2) combining them in one line:
	      cp "$filename" "$newname.0" && > "$filename"


				- Jim Van Zandt


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