The SQLite RELEASE statement is used to release a shared lock held by the current connection on a specified table.
When multiple connections are accessing the same SQLite database, they may need to lock specific tables in order to perform their operations safely and avoid conflicts with other connections. These locks can be either shared locks, which allow multiple connections to read the table simultaneously but only one connection to write to it, or exclusive locks, which block all other connections from accessing the table.
Syntax
The RELEASE statement is used to release shared locks held by the current connection. Its syntax is as follows:
RELEASE [TABLE] table_name;
Here, table_name is the name of the table on which the shared lock should be released. If the TABLE keyword is omitted, it will be assumed by default.
It’s important to note that the RELEASE statement only releases shared locks held by the current connection. It does not release exclusive locks, nor does it affect locks held by other connections. To release an exclusive lock, the connection holding it must commit or roll back its transaction.
In addition, the RELEASE statement may not be necessary in all cases. Shared locks are automatically released when the transaction that acquired them is committed or rolled back, so if the connection is using transactions properly, it may not need to use the RELEASE statement at all.
Overall, the RELEASE statement is a useful tool for managing shared locks in SQLite databases, but it should be used judiciously and only when necessary to avoid potential conflicts with other connections.