Checking the current "STATE" of a file? Is it possible...

[bostonmacosx]

I'm going to have an upload folder which I want another script to look into every 5 minutes. The looking into script will take completed uploads and process them. How do I ignore the files which I currently being written and only process the files which have had their uploads completed.

Is there a way with PHP to see the "state" of a file and whether it is open for writing or not by another process?

Thanks
Robert

[MarkR]

There are ways you can do this, but not very elegantly and not without race conditions.

I recommend that you use a different system instead:

1. Have the upload process upload files with a temporary filename (myfilename.tmp)
2. Once the upload is complete, have the uploader rename the file to its final filename
3. Renaming a file is an atomic process - it's not possible to see a rename half-completed
4. Your reader process should ignore the temporary files as they might not be finished yet

This is far more robust than checking the timestamp, etc

Mark