fcntl, lockf, which is better to use for file locking?

Question

Looking for information regarding the advantages and disadvantages of both fcntl and lockf

Answer 1

As you're only coding a daemon which uses it for mutual exclusion, they are equivalent, after all, your application only needs to be compatible with itself.

The trick with the file locking mechanisms is to be consistent - use one and stick to it. Varying them is a bad idea.

I am assuming here that the filesystem will be a local one - if it isn't, then all bets are off, NFS / other network filesystems handle locking with varying degrees of effectiveness (in some cases none)