Understanding `mkpidlock` and why it deletes my files

General Usage
2

I had the same problem and came to the conclusion that mkpidlock() is not supposed to lock the file passed as first argument. Rather, it creates a file that acts as a lock. The fact that the file exists signals other processes that the lock is already taken by someone. I think the reason behind this is that it is very difficult to implement a cross-platform file lock for Linux, Windos, MacOS, etc. So we should use it like so:

mkpidlock("test.txt.lock") do
    open("test.txt", "a") do io
        write(io, "Meow")
    end
end
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