How to determine if a file is busy?

[Alex Martelli]

Benjamin Niemann <b.niemann at betternet.de> wrote:
   ...
> The AppleScript could rename the .new file to .[timestamp], producing a
> new file for each iteration. The Python script would consume & delete all
> .[timestamp] files in lexical order, but must ignore the .new file if it
> happens to be there.

Sounds good to me, placing minimal demands on the AppleScript's
abilities (surely getting a timestamp and doing a rename is well within
its powers!) _and_ on the filesystem used for communication (surely this
small subset of "atomicity of renames" -- which appears to be the only
issue here -- can be guaranteed even by SMB).


Alex