SEM_DELETE

The SEM_DELETE procedure destroys the reference to the specified semaphore within the current IDL process. (Semaphores themselves are independent of any IDL process.)

SEM_DELETE behaves differently on UNIX and Windows systems:

UNIX Systems

On UNIX systems, a semaphore can exist even if no process has a reference to it. In addition to destroying the reference to the specified semaphore within the current IDL process, SEM_DELETE will schedule the semaphore itself for destruction in the following situations:

If the semaphore itself was created by the current IDL process, and the DESTROY_SEMAPHORE keyword was not explicitly set equal to zero.

If the reference to the semaphore was created in the current IDL process with the DESTROY_SEMAPHORE keyword set equal to one.

See DESTROY_SEMAPHORE for additional information.

A semaphore that has been scheduled for destruction will be destroyed when the last process that has a reference to it destroys its reference.

Windows Systems

On Windows systems, a semaphore only exists as long as some process has a reference to it. SEM_DELETE simply destroys the reference to the specified semaphore.

Syntax

SEM_DELETE, strName

Arguments

strName

A scalar string containing the name associated with the semaphore. This is the name used when creating the semaphore with SEM_CREATE.

Note
Semaphore names must be 24 characters or less on Macintosh platforms.

Keywords

None

Example

See SEM_LOCK for an example using this function.

Version History


6.3	Introduced