[Xitami] File locking problems

[Francis Turner]

I am creating a dynamic web system where html (and xml) files are 
generated by perl cgi scripts and they are displayed using Xitami as 
static objects once  created.

Unfortunatley I think I've found a race condition, which causes Xitami 
to crash. The condition occurs when a static XML file includes a second 
file (using .xml from XXX or .literal from XXX) and the second file gets 
deleted or renamed just as its being read.

The problem is I don't know how I can lock a file in order to delete it 
(or rename it).

This doesn't happen very often and its very hard to make occur 
frequently so this is speculation, but I can't think what else is 
causing these occasional crashes. I'm wondering if it is something to do 
with the fatc that the perl script that does the deletion is running as 
a child of Xitami because it is called by CGI. Indeed it could be that 
the problem is that the CGI script is inable to delete/rename the file 
but I don't think so since I check the return codes - also the crash 
reports from Xitami and mention xixxml .... (though I did get one crash 
which just produced a dialog saying Microsoft Visual C++ has encountered 
an unrecoverable error with no log)

The system is win2000 sp1 + many security fixes

The crash log reports look like this if anyone can explain them

23/Nov/2001:11:45:14 +0100 Xitami v2.5b5
Abort at xixxml:4: (2, 7)
23/Nov/2001:11:45:14 +0100 Xitami v2.5b5
Abort at xixxml:4: (2, 7)
23/Nov/2001:11:45:14 +0100 Xitami v2.5b5
Abort at xixxml:4: (2, 7)
23/Nov/2001:13:54:39 +0100 Xitami v2.5b5
Abort at xixxml:4: (2, 7)

If anyone has some bright ideas about how I might debug this further 
and/or work around it I would appreciate it!

Francis

PS yes I know 2.5b5 is BETA code. but it has been remarkably stable 
other than this issue and even this one seems to be RARE!

-- 
"Education is when you read the fine print; 
  experience is what you get when you don't." Pete Seeger