Re: [Boost-users] [interprocess] named mutex clean up

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [interprocess] named mutex clean up
From: Ion Gaztañaga (igaztanaga_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-04-07 18:46:10

Chard wrote:
> Does calling named_mutex::remove() have consistent cross-platform behaviour?

No until the next Boost version. The UNIX behaviour will be the chosen 
behaviour: you can remove in-use named resources (named mutex, shared 
memory...)

> On the Windows platform, I've found I can call named_mutex::remove() at 
> start up, which seems to clean up the named_mutex if it is orphaned, or just 
> do nothing if another, active, process has a lock - exactly the behaviour I 
> require.
> 
> However, is this platform independent, and a suitable technique?

No, it's not portable. I think you should use file locks which are 
automatically unlocked when a process dies. However, take in care that 
to achieve portable file locks you have several restrictions that I 
think you can avoid in your case:

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_38_0/doc/html/interprocess/synchronization_mechanisms.html#interprocess.synchronization_mechanisms.file_lock

Best,

Ion