How Can I Safely Lock Files for Concurrent Access in Python?

Locking a File for Concurrent Access

In Python, it is often necessary to lock a file while writing to it, especially when multiple processes access the file simultaneously. This ensures data integrity and prevents race conditions. While there are several solutions available online, many of them are platform-specific.

Modern Cross-Platform Solutions

As of June 2024, several robust and cross-platform options exist for file locking in Python. Among the most popular are:

• filelock
• Portalocker
• oslo.concurrency (for general multi-process synchronization utilities)

Original Solution

Before these modern solutions emerged, the following custom code was widely used:

from filelock import FileLock

with FileLock("myfile.txt.lock"):
    # work with the file as it is now locked
    print("Lock acquired.")

This code uses the filelock library, which provides a platform-independent file locking mechanism. The with statement ensures that the file is unlocked automatically when the block is complete.

Conclusion

By utilizing these cross-platform solutions, Python developers can effectively lock files for writing in a multi-process environment, ensuring data integrity and preventing race conditions.

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