Wednesday, February 10, 2010

LOCKING in ORACLE

http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUESTION_ID:839412906735 ---- LOCKING


 

Here is a small example showing how this happens. We will use three V$ tables in order

to see how this works; V$TRANSACTION, V$SESSION, and V$LOCK. V$TRANSACTION contains an

entry for every active transaction. V$LOCK contains an entry for all locks held as well

as locks being waited on. V$SESSION shows us the sessions logged in. We'll start by

starting a transaction in one session and looking at the state of the system at that

point:


 

tkyte@TKYTE816> update dept set deptno = deptno+10;

4 rows updated.


 

tkyte@TKYTE816> select username,

2 v$lock.sid,

3 trunc(id1/power(2,16)) rbs,

4 bitand(id1,to_number('ffff','xxxx'))+0 slot,

5 id2 seq,

6 lmode,

7 request

8 from v$lock, v$session

9 where v$lock.type = 'TX'

10 and v$lock.sid = v$session.sid

11 and v$session.username = USER

12 /


 

USERNAME SID RBS SLOT SEQ LMODE REQUEST

-------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------

TKYTE 8 2 46 160 6 0


 

tkyte@TKYTE816> select XIDUSN, XIDSLOT, XIDSQN

2 from v$transaction

3 /


 

XIDUSN XIDSLOT XIDSQN

---------- ---------- ----------

2 46 160


 

The interesting things to note here are:


 

?á The LMODE is 6 in the V$LOCK table and the request is 0. If you refer to the

definition of the V$LOCK table in the Oracle Server Reference, you will find that LMODE=6

is an exclusive lock. A value of 0 in the request means we are not making a request ¡V we

have the lock.

?á There is only one row in this table. This V$LOCK table is more of a queuing table than

a lock table. Many people expect there would be four rows in V$LOCK since we have four

rows locked. What you must remember however is that Oracle does not store a master list

of every row locked anywhere. To find out if a row is locked, we must go to that row.

?á I took the ID1 and ID2 columns, and performed a bit of bit manipulation on them.

Oracle needed to save three 16bit numbers, but only had two columns in order to do it.

So, the first column ID1 holds two of these numbers. By dividing by 2^16 with

trunc(id1/power(2,16)) rbs and by masking out the high bits with

bitand(id1,to_number('ffff','xxxx'))+0 slot, I am able to get the two numbers that are

hiding in that one number back out.

?á The RBS, SLOT, and SEQ values match the V$TRANSACTION information. This is my

transaction ID.


 

Now I'll start another session using the same user name, update some rows in EMP, and

then try to update DEPT:


 

tkyte@TKYTE816> update emp set ename = upper(ename);

14 rows updated.


 

tkyte@TKYTE816> update dept set deptno = deptno-10;


 


 

I am now blocked in this session. If we run the V$ queries again, we see:


 

tkyte@TKYTE816> select username,

2 v$lock.sid,

3 trunc(id1/power(2,16)) rbs,

4 bitand(id1,to_number('ffff','xxxx'))+0 slot,

5 id2 seq,

6 lmode,

7 request

8 from v$lock, v$session

9 where v$lock.type = 'TX'

10 and v$lock.sid = v$session.sid

11 and v$session.username = USER

12 /


 

USERNAME SID RBS SLOT SEQ LMODE REQUEST

-------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------

TKYTE 8 2 46 160 6 0

TKYTE 9 2 46 160 0 6

TKYTE 9 3 82 163 6 0


 

tkyte@TKYTE816> select XIDUSN, XIDSLOT, XIDSQN

2 from v$transaction

3 /


 

XIDUSN XIDSLOT XIDSQN

---------- ---------- ----------

3 82 163

2 46 160


 

What we see here is that a new transaction has begun ¡V (3,82,163) is the transaction ID.

It has two rows in V$LOCK this time. One row represents the locks that it owns (where

LMODE=6). It also has a row in there that shows a REQUEST with a value of 6. This is a

request for an exclusive lock. The interesting thing to note here is that the

RBS/SLOT/SEQ values of this request row are the transaction ID of the holder of the lock.

We can easily see that the transaction with SID=8 is blocking the transaction with SID=9.

Now, if we commit in SID = 8 the above changes:


 

tkyte@TKYTE816> select username,

2 v$lock.sid,

3 trunc(id1/power(2,16)) rbs,

4 bitand(id1,to_number('ffff','xxxx'))+0 slot,

5 id2 seq,

6 lmode,

7 request, block

8 from v$lock, v$session

9 where v$lock.type = 'TX'

10 and v$lock.sid = v$session.sid

11 and v$session.username = USER

12 /


 

USERNAME SID RBS SLOT SEQ LMODE REQUEST

-------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------

TKYTE 9 3 82 163 6 0


 

tkyte@TKYTE816> select XIDUSN, XIDSLOT, XIDSQN

2 from v$transaction

3 /


 

XIDUSN XIDSLOT XIDSQN

---------- ---------- ----------

3 82 163


 

that request row has gone ¡V it disappeared the instant the other session gave up its

lock. That request row was the queuing mechanism. The database is able to wake up the

blocked sessions the instant the transaction is completed. Note that the above gives us a

very easy way to see blockers and waiters:


 

tkyte@TKYTE816> select

(select username from v$session where sid=a.sid) blocker,

2 a.sid,

3 ' is blocking ',

4 (select username from v$session where sid=b.sid) blockee,

5 b.sid

6 from v$lock a, v$lock b

7 where a.block = 1

8 and b.request > 0

9 and a.id1 = b.id1

10 and a.id2 = b.id2

11 /


 

BLOCKER SID 'ISBLOCKING' BLOCKEE SID

-------- ---------- ------------- -------- ----------

TKYTE 8 is blocking TKYTE 9


 

simply by doing a self-join of V$LOCK with itself (I ran this query before committing the

session with SID=8).


 

2) exclusive lock -- I updated a row. no one else can update it until I commit. I have

an X lock on that row and only one person at a time can have an X lock. an X lock

provides serialization to a resource.


 

A shared lock -- when I update a table, I take a shared lock on the DEFINITION of the

table. Everyone else can do that as well (more then one session can get a shared lock on

the table definition). So, more than one person at a time can update the table. If you

wanted to ALTER the table, you would need an X lock on the defintion. You cannot get an

X lock when there are shared locks so you wait until there are no shared locks.


 

3) mystat has the statistics (cpu use, blocks read, cursors opened, etc) for your session

only. v$locked_object shows you all of the locks in the system.


 

4) no, never.

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