Thomas Hagen ([log in to unmask]) wrote (2/15):
 
> Hello, could someone please help me by describing how to enforce
> exclusive file locking on all files in a group.
> My problem is that at work we are several programmers working on the same
> cobol sources. Some times, by accident, two or more can have opened the
> same sources, causing a lot of trouble.
 
I support others comments that production sources should be maintained
separate than those undergoing revision.  In support of that, we keep
production sources in a separate account and allow the support analyst
'READ' access.  In turn, they follow a process of making changes in
their own environment and then placing the revised source and object
modules in another separate area for user-test/signoff prior to it
being moved back into the production source/object account.  However,
we still have similiar problems when multiple analysts end-up trying
to work on the same sources in the development account.
 
Several people replied to the original note, suggesting the use of the
'free' editor QUAD.  However, we've had a slight problem of using
QUAD in this situation.  Although the second accessor to the file
gets a warning in QUAD that the file is already in use, if that user
forgets/goes ahead and performs the 'KEEP', QUAD will actually save
the user's version of the file under a 'T'-file and flag the original
text file to be automatically purged when the last user closes the file.
Several times this has caused us problems and we've had to try and
find-out from various analysts who might have the 'T'-file.
 
So at least in the versions of QUAD we have, it really doesn't open
the file in exclusive access.  So to get around the problem, we use
a command file similiar to:
 
               PARM textfile
               FILE IN=!textfile;EXC
               RUN QUAD.<grp>.<acct>;INFO="T *IN"
 
In this manner, the text file is indeed opened exclusively by QUAD and
we don't have the above problem.
 
-- Jerry