How to check if a file is open in unix

Today's Posts. Quick Links. Search Forums. Show Threads. Show Posts. Shell Programming and Scripting. Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting see if a file is open. Registered User. Join Date: Aug I need to find out if a file is currently begin written to.

How would I go about doing this? I want to put it in a loop so if file is open then keep looking until it is closed. If closed then continue with your script. Join Date: Feb The only commands that will check if a file is open are fuser and lsof. Code :. Dear all, I have an AWK related issue. I have two data files; the first, FileA has fewer lines, the second, FileB has more.

FileA is a subset of FileB. But, since the user could be currently located in any subdirectory and might move while you are checking, this process could be both slow and problematical.

You might try looping through all the subdirectories in the file system using a loop and an embedded find command like that shown below, but you would soon discover that the find command, in accessing each subdirectory, also ends up "using" it and, therefore, reporting itself in the process. In fact, every directory would be listed in the output of this command. While I don't advocate tossing users off systems without due courtesy, I have often found that users who are keeping a file system busy have been idle for hours.

Interestingly, editing a file does not, by itself, keep a file system busy. The -k option doesn't work on a mount point. Once you identify a process that is using a particular directory or file, you can terminate the process using the kill command. Alternately, if you identify the particular file or directory that is being used, you can use fuser's -k command to kill it. If a file system is busy because of user activity, the most expedient way to make the file system non-busy is to list the processes keeping it busy and terminate each process with a kill In the commands below, I have verified that the user is not actively working before terminating his or her process, but you will have to weigh the interests of your users' processing needs against your need to unmount the file system.

Linux systems also include the fuser command, but with different options than Solaris. If you are administering Linux systems, you should check the man command for the fuser implementation on your system. Sandra Henry-Stocker has been administering Unix systems for more than 30 years.

She describes herself as "USL" Unix as a second language but remembers enough English to write books and buy groceries. She lives in the mountains in Virginia where, when not working with or writing about Unix, she's chasing the bears away from her bird feeders. Next Topic Linux Edit File. Reinforcement Learning. R Programming. React Native. Python Design Patterns. Python Pillow. Python Turtle. Verbal Ability. Interview Questions.

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Discrete Mathematics. Ethical Hacking. Computer Graphics. Software Engineering. Web Technology. Cyber Security. C Programming. Control System. Data Mining. Data Warehouse. Javatpoint Services JavaTpoint offers too many high quality services. Following are some useful ways to open a file from the terminal: Open the file using cat command. Open the file using less command.