The LOCK command reserves one or more resource names. Only one process at a time can reserve a resource name. Resource names follow exactly the same formation rules as M variables. They may be unsubscripted or subscripted and may or may not have a leading caret (^) prefix. M code commonly uses LOCKs as flags that control access to global data. Generally, a LOCK specifies the resource with the same name as the global variable that requires protected access. However, this is only a convention. LOCKing does not keep two or more processes from modifying the same global variable. It only keeps another process from LOCKing the same resource name at the same time.
M LOCKs are hierarchical. If one process holds a LOCK on a resource, no other process can LOCK either an ancestor or a descendant resource. For example, a LOCK on ^A(1,2) blocks LOCKs on either ^A(1), or ^A(1,2,3), but not on, for example, ^A(2) or its descendants.
A LOCK argument may contain any subscripted or unsubscripted M variable name including a name without a preceding caret symbol (^). As they have the appearance of local variable names, resource names with no preceding caret symbol (^) are commonly referred to as "local LOCKs" even though these LOCKs interact with other processes. For more information on the interaction between LOCKs and processes, refer to the LKE chapter in the GT.M Administration and Operations Guide.
The GT.M run-time system records LOCK information in memory associated with the region holding the global of the same name. However, GT.M does not place LOCKs in the database structures that hold the globals. Instead the GT.M LOCK manager sets up a "LOCK database" associated with each database region. Only the M commands LOCK, ZALLOCATE, and ZDEALLOCATE and the LKE utility access the information in the "LOCK database".
GT.M distributes the LOCK database within space associated with the database files identified by the Global Directory (GD). The Global Directory Editor (GDE) enables you to create and maintain global directories. GT.M associates LOCKs of resource names starting with a caret symbol (^) with the database region used to map variables with the same name. If the global directory maps the name ^A to file A.DAT, GT.M maps all LOCKs on resource name ^A to LOCK space implemented in shared memory control structures associated with A.DAT. GT.M maps LOCKs on names not starting with a caret symbol (^) to the region of the database specified with the GDE command LOCKS -REGION.
By default, GDE creates global directories mapping "local" LOCKs to the region DEFAULT.
^LOCKS automatically intersect for all users of the same data in any database file, because GT.M associates the ^LOCKs with the same region as the global variables with the same name.
"Local" LOCK intersections are dependent on the global directory, because users may access the database through different global directories. The "local" LOCKs of two processes interact with each other only when the same lock resource names map to the same database region.