Finally found a wat to set a file nonblocking that works on Irix,
Solaris and Linux: use os.O_NONBLOCK.
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_fcntl.py b/Lib/test/test_fcntl.py
index c563018..a5ea1e6 100755
--- a/Lib/test/test_fcntl.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_fcntl.py
@@ -12,9 +12,9 @@
# the example from the library docs
f = open(filename,'w')
-rv = fcntl.fcntl(f.fileno(), FCNTL.F_SETFL, FCNTL.FNDELAY)
+rv = fcntl.fcntl(f.fileno(), FCNTL.F_SETFL, os.O_NONBLOCK)
if verbose:
- print 'Status from fnctl with O_NDELAY: ', rv
+ print 'Status from fnctl with O_NONBLOCK: ', rv
lockdata = struct.pack('hhllhh', FCNTL.F_WRLCK, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0)
if verbose: