Every operation performed by the OpenEdge SQL Engine operates inside a transaction.

For each transaction, an information schema share-lock is acquired at the beginning of the transaction and released at the end of the transaction. This is true whether a transaction is committed successfully or terminated abnormally. Acquiring the information schema share-lock protects the information schema from being altered while the transaction is active.

During the life of an active connection, many transactions can be performed. The first transaction begins upon connection to the SQL engine and is used to read the information schema. Once the information schema has been read, the transaction ends. Each successive operation will then begin and end a transaction requiring, at a minimum, a share-lock on the information schema.

While the connection is quiet, there is no active transaction and therefore no lock held on the information schema. If an operation is being performed that will modify the information schema, an exclusive lock on the information schema will be requested. For the exclusive lock on the information schema to be granted, there can be no other active transactions in the database. Once granted, the information schema lock is upgraded from a share to an exclusive lock. While this transaction is active, the exclusive lock prohibits other transactions.

The lock on information schema supersedes all locks on tables and records via transaction isolation level settings for data manipulation operations.