Re: [Groff] File Locking

[Tadziu Hoffmann]

> My script runs in the foreground but launches both the editor
> and gv to run in the background.

Ah. I misunderstood. (Probably because your philosophy is
somewhat different from mine -- I launch the script from the
editor (not the other way around), and the editor is "blocked"
until the script terminates, so this kind of thing can't happen.)

But now I'm wondering: how does the editor communicate with the
script, i.e., how does the script know when you've pressed the
"save" button?  (Apart from the script simply polling the file in
regular intervals, which either wastes CPU time (not too much of
an issue these days) or makes you wait unnecessarily until the
next update.)

Anyway, you might try to minimize the chances of the editor
overwriting the file at the wrong moment by inserting a step
which completes much faster than groffing the file, like perhaps
pulling a copy, or renaming the file, or maybe making it read-only
during processing, but your editor might not like this, so it's
probably not worth the trouble.  I think I'll agree with Ted --
this is mostly an academic issue, since no permanent harm is
being done by "saving at the wrong time".