I have an application that sits on local user's machine and, upon a button click, updates data by zapping a set of local files and appending from a set of files on a network - files that were placed there ny another process.

Occassionaly the process fails because - for whatever reason - the user gets a "file access is denied" on one of the appends. Is there a way to test the availiability of the file before doing the append? As i read it flock() only locks a file you have already_ successfully opened. Hoe can I look at the file and tell if the append will work?


TIA
Chris