Select...For update

When you issue a SELECT statement against the database to query some records, no locks are placed on the selected rows. In general, this is a wonderful feature because the number of records locked at any given time is kept to the absolute minimum: only those records that have been changed but not yet committed are locked. Even then, others will be able to read those records as they appeared before the change (the "before image" of the data).

There are times, however, when you will want to lock a set of records even before you change them in your program. Oracle offers the FOR UPDATE clause of the SELECT statement to perform this locking.

When you issue a SELECT...FOR UPDATE statement, the RDBMS automatically obtains exclusive row-level locks on all the rows identified by the SELECT statement, holding the records "for your changes only" as you move through the rows retrieved by the cursor. No one else will be able to change any of these records until you perform a ROLLBACK or a COMMIT—but other sessions can still read the data.

Here are two examples of the FOR UPDATE clause used in a cursor:

CURSOR toys_cur IS SELECT name, manufacturer, preference_level, sell_at_yardsale_flag FROM my_sons_collection WHERE hours_used = 0 FOR UPDATE; CURSOR fall_jobs_cur IS SELECT task, expected_hours, tools_required, do_it_yourself_flag FROM winterize WHERE year = TO_CHAR (SYSDATE, 'YYYY') FOR UPDATE OF task;

The first cursor uses the unqualified FOR UPDATE clause, while the second cursor qualifies the FOR UPDATE with a column name from the query.

You can use the FOR UPDATE clause in a SELECT against multiple tables. In this case, rows in a table are locked only if the FOR UPDATE clause references a column in that table. In the following example, the FOR UPDATE clause does not result in any locked rows in the winterize table:

CURSOR fall_jobs_curIS SELECT w.task, w.expected_hours, w.tools_required, w.do_it_yourself_flag FROM winterize w, husband_config hc WHERE YEAR = TO_CHAR (SYSDATE, 'YYYY') AND w.task_id = hc.task_id FOR UPDATE OF husband_config.max_procrastination_allowed;

The FOR UPDATE OF clause mentions only the max_procrastination_allowed column; no columns in the winterize table are listed.

The OF list of the FOR UPDATE clause does not restrict you to changing only those columns listed. Locks are still placed on all rows; the OF list just gives you a way to document more clearly what you intend to change. If you simply state FOR UPDATE in the query and do not include one or more columns after the OF keyword, the database will then lock all identified rows across all tables listed in the FROM clause.

Furthermore, you do not have to actually UPDATE or DELETE any records just because you issue a SELECT...FOR UPDATE statement—that act simply states your intention to be able to do so.

Finally, you can append the optional keywordNOWAIT to the FOR UPDATE clause to tell Oracle not to wait if the table has been locked by another user. In this case, control will be returned immediately to your program so that you can perform other work or simply wait for a period of time before trying again. Without the NOWAIT clause, your process will block until the table is available. There is no limit to the wait time unless the table is remote. For remote objects, the Oracle initialization parameter, DISTRIBUTED_LOCK_TIMEOUT, is used to set the limit.