Jeff Kell ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
: Some odd things on 5.0 that work, but I'm not sure how safe they are... :-)
: Ever wanted to replace a program file that someone's using?  Piece of
: cake.  Get in the shell, rm the currently-accessed one, and mv the new
: one in it's place.  It works, and subsequent accessors get the new file.
: This also works for XL files in use by a program (verified that one too).
 
...well that sounds really odd!  I don't know the insides of this but given
that MPE uses the disc space that code occupies for swapping it,  I would
expect that "rm" just removes the directory entry but does not free up the
disc space.  Thus the OS can continue swapping pieces of that code in/out.
Whether the disc space gets returned when the last accessor closes the
file I don't know.   Maybe not?  Maybe you end up losing disc space?
Areas occupied on disc with no directory entry pointing to them?  Or,
maybe it's clever enough to free the disc space after last user closes
the file...  Hmmm...
 
Eero - HP CSY lab.