select for update

Hi all,

I've got a bit of a weird problem. I have a bunch of user connecting to Oracle 8.1.6 via a middleware layer, which provides a connection pool. The code they are running contains lots of SELECT FOR UPDATE statements, because we need to ensure that things happen in sequence, rather than a situation in which process 1 can issue an UPDATE, process 2 issue a plain SELECT, then process 1 COMMIT.

The processes connect to middleware, then middleware connects to Oracle, so if a process dies (which happens from time to time), Oracle doesn't know. If a process requests a lock, then dies, Oracle will hold that lock, and all the other processes will be stalled. We know that if a process is successful, it will never require a lock for longer than 2 seconds, but we allow 10 seconds.

So my problem is, is there a way to tell Oracle to automatically free any locks once they reach a certain age?

Thanks,

g

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