(PHP 5 >= 5.1.0)
SplFileObject::flock — Portable file locking
Locks or unlocks the file in the same portable way as flock().
operation is one of the following:
Set to TRUE if the lock would block (EWOULDBLOCK errno condition).
Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.
Example #1 SplFileObject::flock() example
<?php
$file = new SplFileObject("/tmp/lock.txt", "w");
if ($file->flock(LOCK_EX)) { // do an exclusive lock
    $file->ftruncate(0);     // truncate file
    $file->fwrite("Write something here\n");
    $file->flock(LOCK_UN);   // release the lock    
} else {
    echo "Couldn't get the lock!";
}
?>