I'm still not understanding this, and it's vitally important to the project I'm working on, so I have a question: >From my understanding, this: UPDATE account SET value = 10 WHERE number = 99; actually implies all of this: BEGIN; SELECT value FOR UPDATE FROM account WHERE number = 99; UPDATE account SET value = 10 WHERE number = 99; COMMIT; END; Is this correct? If so, there's something I don't understand. In order to test locking stuff, I created a little C function: int pgsleep(int i) { sleep(i); return(i); } which I then linked into PG using CREATE FUNCTION.... It worked just as I expected. So to test locking, I opened up two windows, and ran psql in each. In one window, I run: UPDATE account SET value = pgsleep(20) WHERE number = 99; Then, a few seconds later, in the other window, I run: UPDATE account SET value = 30 WHERE number = 99; What I would expect to happen is that Window 1 would lock the row where number = 99, and then set the value to 20, and then the command in Window 2 would run, setting the value to 30. Instead, the UPDATE in Window 2 runs immediately, setting the value to 30, and then, after the twenty seconds have gone by, the UPDATE in Window 1 finishes, and sets the value to 20. So, what's actually going on here? Thanks for any tips. ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://www.postgresql.org/search.mpl