A locking technique for high concurrency situations in WordPress

you-lock-it-up.php

<?php
function test_race() {
	if ( wp_cache_get( 'lock' ) )
		return false;

	wp_cache_add( 'lock', 1 );

	$key = time();

	wp_cache_add( $key, 0 );
	if ( 1 !== wp_cache_incr( $key ) )
		return false;

	// do the things

	wp_cache_delete( 'lock' );
}