Re: Revised Patch to allow multiple table locks in "Unison"

> On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Hiroshi Inoue wrote:
>
> > I have a question.
> > What will happen when the second table is locked for a long time
> > though the first table isn't locked ?
>
> Consider the case:
>
> LOCK a,b;
>
> Assume a is free (i.e. not locked), but b is busy (i.e. locked).
>
> First the system will do a blocking lock attempt on a, which will return
> immediately, since a was free. Table a is now locked. Now, the system will
> try a non-blocking lock on b. But, b is busy so the lock attempt will fail
> immediately (since the lock attempt was non-blocking). So, the system will
> back off, and the lock on a is released.
>
> Next, a blocking lock attempt will be made on b. (Since it was busy last
> time, we want to wait for it to become free.) The lock call will block
> until b becomes free. At that time, the lock attempt will return, and b
> will be locked. Then, a non-blocking lock attempt will be made on table a.
> (Recall that we don't have a lock on it, since we released it during
> back-off earlier.) Assuming a is still free, it will be locked and the
> LOCK command will complete. Otherwise, if a is busy, the lock attempt will
> then restart with a blocking lock attempt on a. The procedure will
> continue until all tables are free to lock.
>
> In summary, no locks are held while waiting for tables to become free --
> in essence, the tables are locked all at once, once all tables in the
> LOCK statement are free.

The more I think about it the more I like it. I never would have
thought of the idea myself.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 853-3000
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue
+ Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026