Lock files always present?

[Gerry Doris]

I'm totally confused about how the lock files work in MailScanner.

I've noticed that I always have lock files for each virus engine in /tmp.
For example, there is always a file called /tmp/FProtBusy.lock.  The text
in the file says

Virus checker locked for scanning by f-prot 18949

When I check the pid 18949 it turns out to be one of the MailScanner
processes.

When I checked the f-prot-autoupdate script it never checks to see if the
lock exists.  It just goes ahead and creates the lock file then proceeds
to perform the pattern update process.  Just before the script exits it
removes the /tmp/FProtBusy.lock file which is immediately created again by
a MailScanner process???

Could someone enlighten me on how this is really working?

Gerry