Irina Tudose's blog

I will continue in this part describing other types of Key – Range locks.

As a reference I will use the same table created in part 1 – range_lock.

RangeS-U Locks

RangeS-U locks are locks acquired on Index key values from a specific range when the following conditions are met:

• The transaction contains an UPDATE statement
• WHERE clause is used to specify a condition that limit the rows that are updated. The condition will include at least one column from the Index. This will define the range of key value(s) from the Index. In this case, locks are needed on defining key value(s) that refer to the rows updated.
• The UPDATE modifies a column(s) which is(are) not contained in the Index definition or:
• The UPDATE modifies a column(s) which is(are) contained in the Index definition.

I hope from the below example the explanation will more straightforward. I will use a larger range of values in this example, meaning I will use an inequality operation. The equality operation will have the same types of locks.

Start Serializable Transaction

Open a new SQL session and issue below query without commiting the transaction.
Until the end of this blog this session will be known to readers as session 55.

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SERIALIZABLE
go
begin transaction
go

update range_lock set sname ='surname' where rname between 'anna' and 'arlen'

Analyze the Query Execution Plan

RangesS-U - Execution Plan

 
 
 
 
 
 
You will see a Clustered Index Update, and an Index seek on ix_rname (rname column) – this defines the range of the key values to seek in.

The update on PK_range_locks happens because in this case the PK is a Clustered Index that orders the data rows in the table based on its (Primary Key) key values. The update is made on another column than the defined Primary key column. All data rows from a table are called the leaf level of the index. The Primary Key values contain pointers to all data rows from the table. Any update on another column than the primary key will result to an update on the leaf level of the Clustered Index.

Check Held Locks

Execute:

sp_lock 55

Here is what you would get:

RangeS-U for inequality operation

I see 3 Exclusive locks (X) are held on IndId=1 (Primary Key) which are needed for the Clustered Index update, and I see that RangeS-U locks are acquired on IndId = 2 (ix_rname) on four key values. If I go back in part 1, and take a look on table rows and their order, I will see that between “anna” and “arlen” are 3 rows, not 4. The fourth lock is on the next key value after “arlen” – “barry”.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
As the name suggests Shared – Update locks mean that:

• Other transactions that need to Select the same rows inside the range will be permitted.
• Other transactions that perform an update on any of the key values from the range – will be blocked by the first one until the first one is commited or rollbacked.

Create Blockage

Open a second SQL session (here will be known as session 58) and execute:

begin transaction 

select rname from range_lock where
rname = 'barry'

This statement will work fine. Rollback this transaction.

Inside the same session execute:

begin transaction 

update range_lock set rname = 'barri' where
rname = 'barry'

You will see that this transaction will be blocked by the first one.

Session 58 is blocked by session 55

Check Locked resources on both transactions

To figure out why the update operation on rname column for the “barry” row is blocked by the first update on sname column for the rows between “anna” and “arlen” check this out:

Execute:

sp_lock 55
go
sp_lock 58
go

RangeS-U for inequality operation

I see one WAIT type of lock for the second transaction on same resource the first transaction has put RangeS-U lock. It is clear that we are speaking about same row: “barry”.

Microsoft explains WAIT locks as:

WAIT – Lock is blocked by another process.

Execute Rollback on both sessions (55 and 58) to preserve the initial image of the table.
This is all about RangeS-U locks and further in part 3, I will detail RangeX-X locks and RangeX-X combined with Range S-U locks.