We're using GDBM version 1.8.0, as of May 19, 1999. We have 
a fairly active web site whichs pulls content from a GDBM 
database.

Usually this access is read-only. Occasionally -- to update 
a counter or information -- we need to open these databases 
with write access.

A sample line to do this:

  $dbm = dbmopen("facedb", "w");

Usually, this is never a problem. However, during heavy 
load -- when more people than usual are updating data or 
counters and thus needing to write to this database -- the 
dbmopen() call fails with the following error:

"Warning: dbmopen_gdbm(itemsdb): 10 [Can't be writer], 11 
[Resource temporarily unavailable] in db.php on line 5"

The PHP documentation page for dbmopen() states: "Note that 
PHP does its own file locking in addition to any file 
locking that may be done by the DBM library itself."

Is this true? If so, why would we be encountering this bug?

I guess the first question, which I might not be qualified 
to answer: is this a GDBM problem, or a PHP problem?

Would switching to another database style help? Can we trap 
this error and try again?

Enough question. That's my bug report.

-Cabel