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