Locking files during check-out

SNiFF+ supports three mechanisms for locking files during a check-out:

- Exclusive Lock--Creates a local, writable copy of the file version in the working environment. Your version control tool puts an exclusive lock on the selected version. No other team member can check out the file while you have an exclusive lock on it. When you are done making modifications to the file and testing the changes, you check in the file, thereby removing your exclusive lock on it.
- Concurrent Lock--Creates a local, writable copy of the file version in the working environment. Your version control tool puts a lock on the version in such a way that others can also lock the same version. You and any number of your team members can check out and then modify a file with concurrent lock. After modification and testing, a merge of all the concurrently locked files must be performed, and the merged version must be locked and then checked in.
For systems like RCS that do not support concurrent locking, no locking mechanism is used.
- No Lock--Creates a local, read-only copy of the file version in the working environment. Your version control tool does not put a lock on the version.