Greetings,

Time for another TurboIMAGE question.

I'm pretty sure there is no way to do this directly in TurboIMAGE.  I am
curious whether it has ever been an enhancement request, or whether
someone has a suggestion of how to accomplish something equivalent.

I want something that's like a cross between an unconditional and a
conditional lock request.  I'd like to issue a lock request using this
new mode, and specifying a time interval, e.g., 15 seconds.  

If the lock can be granted immediately, fine.  

If not, the request is queued and my process is blocked, just as for an
unconditional lock request.  

If the lock can be granted within the specified interval, control
returns to my process, just as when an unconditional lock request is
granted.

If the lock is still pending when the specified time has elapsed, my
request is deleted from the queue, and I get a status return indicating
that my request was unsuccessful because of a timeout.  

It would be like a timed read against a terminal or a message file.  It
seems like something that would be very useful, but I don't remember
ever having heard it suggested.

Without this feature, the best I know of to do is to issue an
unconditional lock request every second for 15 seconds, and then give
up.  This is not a very good substitute for what I want, because my
request never gets queued up.

Walter  

Walter J. Murray

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