SQL Server - How to lock a table until a stored procedure finishes

Solution 1:

Needed this answer myself and from the link provided by David Moye, decided on this and thought it might be of use to others with the same question:

CREATE PROCEDURE ...
AS
BEGIN
  BEGIN TRANSACTION

  -- lock table "a" till end of transaction
  SELECT ...
  FROM a
  WITH (TABLOCK, HOLDLOCK)
  WHERE ...

  -- do some other stuff (including inserting/updating table "a")



  -- release lock
  COMMIT TRANSACTION
END

Solution 2:

BEGIN TRANSACTION

select top 1 *
from table1
with (tablock, holdlock)

-- You do lots of things here

COMMIT

This will hold the 'table lock' until the end of your current "transaction".

Solution 3:

Use the TABLOCKX lock hint for your transaction. See this article for more information on locking.