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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-18T06:58:04+00:00

This is a question which isn’t linked to any practical situation I’m in, but

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This is a question which isn’t linked to any practical situation I’m in, but it always bugged me.

What could go wrong if I have one script reading and appending lines in one text file and another script reading from the same file?

I know that when a script opens a text file it’s working with the version of that file from the moment it has been opened, not considering following edits. I want both script to be working with the latest possible version (I recon it won’t be real-time) of the text file.

I guess one way of putting the question is: which is the best way to handle said scripts? When should I close and open the file in the first one?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I know that when a script opens a text
    file it’s working with the version of
    that file from the moment it has been
    opened, not considering following
    edits

    This is wrong statement. For example try following command in Unix:

    tail -f <some file>

    And then try to add lines to that file. tail command will follow your additions. (assuming you do flush periodically when writing).

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