Opinions needed: Locking strategy

Hi,

I´am using Oracle workgroup server 7.2.2 on netware and Delphi 2.01 on NT 4.0 as frontend.

I develop several applications in a multiuser environment. Like all sql-servers oracle performs standard locking on rows which are updated during transactions. These rows are unlocked upon commit or rollback. If two users try to update the same record, oracle waits until the record can be locked. But in my point of view, this is not very fine for a well-designed user-interface, when a user has to wait several minutes or hours for a lock.

In my application, i want to check for a lock by another user before I try to update any record in order to prevent that the user must wait too long. I have already found something about the DBMS_LOCK package of oracle. Has anyone experiences with it ? If yes, please tell me. Are thery other ways for a good locking strategy ?

Thanx

Stephan Voigt Received on Mon Feb 10 1997 - 00:00:00 CST