Two differant parts of the code accessing the same database at the same time

[cliftonbazaar]

This isn't a question, more of a request to be pointed in the right direction.

 

I have a program which runs a sports game (cricket), at the moment the database is updated every 5 seconds so each game can be updated in (nearly) real time.  The problem I see is that when players are updating their team or making changes during the '5 second update'- can I make the player changes wait until the 5 second update has finished?

In other words, how do I lock the database (or lock certain rows) while it does it's update but also make sure that players changes wait in a queue until the update is finished and are simply not discarded?

 

I hope this makes sense 

[kickstart]

Hi

 

Table locking should do the job for you:-

 

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/lock-tables.html

 

The other operations should just wait.

 

All the best

 

Keith

[fenway]

Since it might be possible to leave a table "locked" inadvertently, it might be preferable to use a flag on the row to indicate it's "mid-update".

[cliftonbazaar]

Thanks Kickstart for the link, am reading that now.

 

Fenway, what term should I search for in order to find more information on flagging a row?

[fenway]

Well, that depends on what kind of "updates" you're talking about.