>From: "Art S. Kagel" <art.kagel@gmail.com>
[SNIP]

Well, some of us *have* to read the oracle manuals. :-(

>From what I can tell, its an oracle feature such that you can create a lock
on resources such that no one else can touch those resources while you hold
that lock. It appears to be an extension of their internal locking
mechanisms.

I asked one of my local Oracle gurus and he cringed on it. Said he only used
it once because he was forced to. In that instance they wanted to lock the
database so that no one could do anything while this banking process was in
operation. He felt that it was way too heavy handed....

I think that in Informix you'd have a single user put a lock on the specific
tables to have the same effect.

HOWEVER, when the OP started talking about wanting to lock external
resources like files in the file system, I think that there may be some
confusion as to what he wants.

I do agree with Art, however, TANSTAAFL and we're not here to consult and
provide free advice on your design issues ...

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