UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Gurus,
I am faced with a situation where a source system FTPs files to a directory in UNIX and we invoke SQLLDR process to process the files..The problem is we are continoulsy (3 minute)receiving files and we are processing data every 5 minutes.. Is there a way to avoid processing files that are curently being copied ?? I use a find command to process specific files...is there an extension to find command to check if the file is not completely copied?
Thanks

There's not a very easy way to check if the file is complete or not but there's a few different tricks you can use:
A more fiddly solution could be found using lsof to look at what files the ftpd has open but I think it's not the easiest way to go here

lsof actually is not a difficult way to do so and it proved to be very helpful to me.

Another way could be -
is there any trailer record in each and every file that is being transferred, if so its going to be even more simple
say there is a trailer record like
TRL<blah><blah>

then before copying or processing the file check whether TRL record is in place, then you are done.

Thanks for the answers...I think i have to go with lsof...but when i run it in my production box i get the following error?> any idea?
lsof: can't open /dev/mem: Permission denied
lsof: can't open /dev/kmem: Permission denied

I would guess you are trying to run it as the user that processes the files?

lsof must be run by the process owner - in your case root I'd wager. That's why I was saying it'll be difficult

one try please

try running it as sudo

Code:

sudo lsof arguments