After years of painstakingly ringing round and tracking down remote
users every time a bug fix needed a new XL to be installed, or a
formsfile that they were all using, I thought there has to be a better
way, and started investigating the Posix 'rm' command.

Then I noticed the MPE command PURGELINK, which wonder of wonders seems
to do pretty much the same thing; 'purges' a file that people are using,
so you can replace it with a newer one, but leaves the existing
accessors undisturbed until they log off. After which the file really
*is* gone.

So instead of the old 'get everybody off, install the new file, get
everybody on again', you can 'install the new file, and invite everyone
to log out and log in again at their leisure'.

Those with the problem will want to do it immediately, to get the cure;
other will wait for a convenient stopping point, or even leave it until
the end of the working day.

Way cool! But, alas, the Help on this command, and even the Commands
manual, fail to give the slightest hint that you can use it for this....


--
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  William Morris

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