LOCK TABLE statement

Allows a user to explicitly acquire a shared or exclusive table lock on the specified table. The table lock lasts until the end of the current transaction.

Explicitly locking a table is useful for:

• avoiding the overhead of multiple row locks on a table (in other words, user-initiated lock escalation)
• avoiding deadlocks

You cannot lock system tables with this statement.

Syntax

LOCK TABLE table-Name IN { SHARE | EXCLUSIVE } MODE

Once a table is locked in either mode, a transaction does not acquire any subsequent row-level locks on a table. Replace line 13 with this: For example, if a transaction locks the entire Flights table in share mode in order to read data, a particular statement might need to lock a particular row in exclusive mode in order to update the row. However, the previous table-level lock on Hotels forces the exclusive lock to be table-level as well.

If the specified lock cannot be acquired because another connection already holds a lock on the table, a statement-level exception is raised (SQLState X0X02) after the deadlock timeout period.

Examples

-- lock the entire table in share mode to avoid
-- a large number of row locks 
LOCK TABLE Flights IN SHARE MODE;
SELECT *
FROM Flights
WHERE orig_airport > 'OOO';
 
 -- lock the entire table in exclusive mode
-- for a transaction that will update many rows,
-- but where no single statement will update enough rows
-- acquire an exclusive table lock on the table.
-- In a row-level locking system, that transaction would
-- require a large number of locks or might deadlock. 
LOCK TABLE HotelAvailability IN EXCLUSIVE MODE;
UPDATE HotelAvailability
SET rooms_taken = (rooms_taken + 2)
WHERE hotel_id = 194 AND booking_date = DATE('1998-04-10');
 
UPDATE HotelAvailability
SET rooms_taken = (rooms_taken + 2)
WHERE hotel_id = 194 AND booking_date = DATE('1998-04-11');
 
UPDATE HotelAvailability
SET rooms_taken = (rooms_taken + 2)
WHERE hotel_id = 194 AND booking_date = DATE('1998-04-12');
 
UPDATE HotelAvailability
SET rooms_taken = (rooms_taken + 2)
WHERE hotel_id = 194 AND booking_date = DATE('1998-04-12');
 
 -- if a transaction needs to look at a table before
-- updating it, acquire an exclusive lock before
-- selecting to avoid deadlocks 
LOCK TABLE People IN EXCLUSIVE MODE;
SELECT MAX(person_id) + 1 FROM PEOPLE;
-- INSERT INTO PEOPLE . . .