[RESOLVED] [2005] Multiple apps read from same file

[MaslowB]

Is it possible to have 3 different instances of the same application have a text file open for read only access?

Which type would do it? streamReader or?

[Kasracer]

I would imagine you could open it for reading as many times as you needed with anything such as StreamReader.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Why have them open? Open the file, read it into memory, close it. Then, even if there was a file access exception, you could wait a second and try again, as none of the programs would ever be reading the file for long.

[MaslowB]

Well they all launch within a minute or two of each other, and if the file is left stuck open by one of the programs, I wanted the others to be able to read it.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Still, open-read-close. Do that within a Try...Catch block, and if you can't open wait for a second or so. Reading smaller files is so fast that you shouldn't have any collisions in a minute or two, or even a second or two, but if the files are HUGE, that could be an issue. I don't know whether you can have a file open for read only multiple times. It should be possible, but that comes down to OS design, I would think.

[stanav]

Use a SyncLock block perform operations on the file.

[MaslowB]

I'm going to mark this thread as resolved, as it will be a few days of testing to see if the issue is still there or not. Rather not leave it up for now.