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Berkeley DB Reference Guide:
  Locking Subsystem

# Configuring locking

The DB_ENV->set_lk_detect method specifies that the deadlock detector should be run whenever a lock is about to block. This option provides for rapid detection of deadlocks at the expense of potentially frequent invocations of the deadlock detector. On a fast processor with a highly contentious application where response time is critical, this is a good choice. An option argument to the DB_ENV->set_lk_detect method indicates which lock requests should be rejected.

In general, when applications are not specifying lock and transaction timeout values, the DB_LOCK_DEFAULT option is probably the correct first choice, and other options should only be selected based on evidence that they improve transaction throughput. If an application has long-running transactions, DB_LOCK_YOUNGEST will guarantee that transactions eventually complete, but it may do so at the expense of a large number of lock request rejections (and therefore, transaction aborts).

The alternative to using the DB_ENV->set_lk_detect interface is to explicitly perform deadlock detection using the Berkeley DB DB_ENV->lock_detect interface.

The DB_ENV->set_lk_conflicts method allows you to specify your own locking conflicts matrix. This is an advanced configuration option, and is almost never necessary.

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