SYNOPSIS use File::Flock::Retry; # try to acquire exclusive lock. if fail to acquire lock within 60s, die. my $lock = File::Flock::Retry->lock($file); # explicitly unlock $lock->release; # automatically unlock if object is DESTROY-ed. undef $lock; DESCRIPTION This is yet another flock module. It is a more lightweight alternative to File::Flock with some other differences: * OO interface only * Autoretry (by default for 60s) when trying to acquire lock I prefer this approach to blocking/waiting indefinitely or failing immediately. METHODS $lock = File::Flock::Retry->lock($path, \%opts) Attempt to acquire an exclusive lock on $path. $path will be created if not already exists. If $path is already locked by another process, will retry every second for a number of seconds (by default 60). Will die if failed to acquire lock after all retries. Will automatically unlock if $lock goes out of scope. Upon unlock, will remove $path if it was created and is still empty (this behavior is the same as File::Flock). Available options: * retries => int (default: 60) Number of retries (equals number of seconds, since retry is done every second). $lock->unlock Unlock. $lock->release Synonym for unlock(). CAVEATS Not yet tested on Windows. Some filesystems do not support inode? SEE ALSO File::Flock File::Flock::Tiny which is also tiny, but does not have the autoremove and autoretry capability which I want. See also: https://github.com/trinitum/perl-File-Flock-Tiny/issues/1 flock() Perl function.