Locking

It appears that when we issue an UPDATE statement on a table, it locks the
WHOLE table so that any other users can not complete SELECT queries on the
table (without using "WITH (nolock)" in the SELECT statement)
Is there anyway to tell SQL SERVER to not lock the WHOLE table when doing an
update, so that maybe it takes longer, but it only locks 1 row or page at a
time?
Mike
The optimiser escalates to a full table lock when it thinks it will be more
efficient way of processing the data than using page locks. There are a
number of things you can do if you think it should not be performing a table
lock.
Are your statistics up to date? If you don't regularly update statistics,
the optimiser is working with at least one hand tied behind it's back. If the
statistics are not up tp date it may be making incorrect choices.
Do you have suitable indexes? If you have indexes on the data you are
updating (especially a clustered index) it will be easier for the optimiser
to use page locks rather than table locks, if suitable.
It may be you are updating enough of the table that a table lock is the
correct option. In this case you can split up your updates into smaller
transactions, small enough that the optimiser uses page locks.
Hope this helps
John
"Mike" wrote:

> It appears that when we issue an UPDATE statement on a table, it locks the
> WHOLE table so that any other users can not complete SELECT queries on the
> table (without using "WITH (nolock)" in the SELECT statement)
> Is there anyway to tell SQL SERVER to not lock the WHOLE table when doing an
> update, so that maybe it takes longer, but it only locks 1 row or page at a
> time?
>
>
|||Forgive my ignorance, but how do I get my statistics up to date? I am not
experienced in SQL Server administration.
I am using the pubs database in a new installation of SQL Server.
When I issue:
UPDATE authors set au_lname = 'a'
and then jump over to Enterprise Manager and right-click on "Current
Activity" under Management and select Refresh, then I go to Locks/Object and
pubs.dbo.authors, there is 1 row where Lock Type is "TAB" and a bunch with
Lock Type "PAG".
If I add "with (rowlock)" to the UPDATE statement, there is still 1 TAB lock
but less PAG locks.
(I inserted thousands more rows into authors than it comes with to give me
time to go to Ent. Mgr and select Refresh while the update is running)
There is a compound index on au_lname and au_fname.
"John Bandettini" <JohnBandettini@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:D12A67EA-93C0-48F4-A45B-B4A3E9A48218@.microsoft.com...[vbcol=seagreen]
> Mike
> The optimiser escalates to a full table lock when it thinks it will be
> more
> efficient way of processing the data than using page locks. There are a
> number of things you can do if you think it should not be performing a
> table
> lock.
> Are your statistics up to date? If you don't regularly update statistics,
> the optimiser is working with at least one hand tied behind it's back. If
> the
> statistics are not up tp date it may be making incorrect choices.
> Do you have suitable indexes? If you have indexes on the data you are
> updating (especially a clustered index) it will be easier for the
> optimiser
> to use page locks rather than table locks, if suitable.
> It may be you are updating enough of the table that a table lock is the
> correct option. In this case you can split up your updates into smaller
> transactions, small enough that the optimiser uses page locks.
> Hope this helps
> John
> "Mike" wrote:
|||I think you see the IX (intent exclusive) lock on the table.
That is not a real lock, it just tells the the engine that there is a execute
or update lock somewhere in the table.
Normally SQLServer will use row locks. The only way you get a real table
lock with this statement is if you have forbidden row and page locks to a
clustered index on the table. I doubt you have been playing with the
sp_indexoption, so that seems unlikely.
Joachim.
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:28:34 -0500, "Mike W" <mikeotown@.nospam.msn.com>
wrote:

>Forgive my ignorance, but how do I get my statistics up to date? I am not
>experienced in SQL Server administration.
>I am using the pubs database in a new installation of SQL Server.
>When I issue:
>UPDATE authors set au_lname = 'a'
>and then jump over to Enterprise Manager and right-click on "Current
>Activity" under Management and select Refresh, then I go to Locks/Object and
>pubs.dbo.authors, there is 1 row where Lock Type is "TAB" and a bunch with
>Lock Type "PAG".
>If I add "with (rowlock)" to the UPDATE statement, there is still 1 TAB lock
>but less PAG locks.
>(I inserted thousands more rows into authors than it comes with to give me
>time to go to Ent. Mgr and select Refresh while the update is running)
>There is a compound index on au_lname and au_fname.
>"John Bandettini" <JohnBandettini@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
>message news:D12A67EA-93C0-48F4-A45B-B4A3E9A48218@.microsoft.com...
>
This post is free post; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Joachim Verhagen
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/ (Science Jokes)
|||Mike
You can update statistics automatically by enabling the auto update
statistics option. You can do this through enterprise manager. Right click on
the database you want to set the option for and choose properties. On the
option page of properties you can turn this option on and off. You can also
turn the option on or off through query analyser using sp_dboption. (See BOL
for details).
You can use dbcc show_statistics to see how up to date your statistics are.
Statistics also get updated when you rebuild a clustered index.
Hope this helps
John
"Mike W" wrote:

> Forgive my ignorance, but how do I get my statistics up to date? I am not
> experienced in SQL Server administration.
> I am using the pubs database in a new installation of SQL Server.
> When I issue:
> UPDATE authors set au_lname = 'a'
> and then jump over to Enterprise Manager and right-click on "Current
> Activity" under Management and select Refresh, then I go to Locks/Object and
> pubs.dbo.authors, there is 1 row where Lock Type is "TAB" and a bunch with
> Lock Type "PAG".
> If I add "with (rowlock)" to the UPDATE statement, there is still 1 TAB lock
> but less PAG locks.
> (I inserted thousands more rows into authors than it comes with to give me
> time to go to Ent. Mgr and select Refresh while the update is running)
> There is a compound index on au_lname and au_fname.
> "John Bandettini" <JohnBandettini@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
> message news:D12A67EA-93C0-48F4-A45B-B4A3E9A48218@.microsoft.com...
>
>