how to lock a file?

[Mani vannan]

hi all,
When opening a file for reading & writing, how to lock it?.
(Ex: When we open a file using Msword for editing, if we suppose to delete the file, it says the file is in use. how to lock it in java? )

[Joe Ess]

java.nio.channels.FileLock

NOTE:

Whether or not a lock actually prevents another program from accessing the content of the locked region is system-dependent and therefore unspecified. The native file-locking facilities of some systems are merely advisory, meaning that programs must cooperatively observe a known locking protocol in order to guarantee data integrity. On other systems native file locks are mandatory, meaning that if one program locks a region of a file then other programs are actually prevented from accessing that region in a way that would violate the lock. On yet other systems, whether native file locks are advisory or mandatory is configurable on a per-file basis. To ensure consistent and correct behavior across platforms, it is strongly recommended that the locks provided by this API be used as if they were advisory locks.

-from the above documentation
[ June 15, 2005: Message edited by: Joe Ess ]