lock?

Hi

I am writing a program (in c#) which provides functions for "document handling". Each document is represented by a row in an Oracle database table, and I need some way to "lock" this row if a user is editing the document. (Database/sql is not my strong side, but I need to come up with some sort of mechanism for this).

By "locking" I mean that I have some means to say "this document is being edited by a user and no other user can/should edit it".

How can I make such a lock? I was thinking of a column called "lock" which I could set to the user's id if they were editing the document - but then I don't know how to ensure that only one user could attempt to obtain the lock at a time if, for example, two users simultaneously asked for the lock.

Any hints are very welcome!

Thanks,
Peter Received on Wed Nov 14 2007 - 02:44:29 CST