# SELECT FOR UPDATE

New in v20.1: The `SELECT FOR UPDATE` statement is used to order transactions by controlling concurrent access to one or more rows of a table.

It works by locking the rows returned by a selection query, such that other transactions trying to access those rows are forced to wait for the transaction that locked the rows to finish. These other transactions are effectively put into a queue based on when they tried to read the value of the locked rows.

Because this queueing happens during the read operation, the thrashing that would otherwise occur if multiple concurrently executing transactions attempt to `SELECT` the same data and then `UPDATE` the results of that selection is prevented. By preventing this thrashing, CockroachDB also prevents the transaction retries that would otherwise occur.

As a result, using `SELECT FOR UPDATE` leads to increased throughput and decreased tail latency for contended operations.

## Required privileges

The user must have the `SELECT` and `UPDATE` privileges on the tables used as operands.

## Parameters

The same as for other selection queries.

## Examples

### Enforce transaction order when updating the same rows

In this example, we'll use `SELECT FOR UPDATE` to lock a row inside a transaction, forcing other transactions that want to update the same row to wait for the first transaction to complete. The other transactions that want to update the same row are effectively put into a queue based on when they first try to read the value of the row.

This example assumes you are running a local unsecured cluster.

First, let's connect to the running cluster (we'll call this Terminal 1):

    cockroach sql --insecure

Next, let's create a table and insert some rows:

    CREATE TABLE kv (k INT PRIMARY KEY, v INT);
    INSERT INTO kv (k, v) VALUES (1, 5), (2, 10), (3, 15);

Next, we'll start a transaction and lock the row we want to operate on:

    BEGIN;
    SELECT * FROM kv WHERE k = 1 FOR UPDATE;

Hit enter twice in the SQL client to send the input so far to be evaluated. This will result in the following output:

      k | v
    +---+----+
      1 | 5
    (1 row)

Now let's open another terminal and connect to the database from a second client (we'll call this Terminal 2):

    cockroach sql --insecure

From Terminal 2, start a transaction and try to lock the same row for updates that is already being accessed by the transaction we opened in Terminal 1:

    BEGIN;
    SELECT * FROM kv WHERE k = 1 FOR UPDATE;

Hit enter twice to send the input so far to be evaluated. Because Terminal 1 has already locked this row, the `SELECT FOR UPDATE` statement from Terminal 2 will appear to "wait".

Back in Terminal 1, let's update the row and commit the transaction:

    UPDATE kv SET v = v + 5 WHERE k = 1;
    COMMIT;

    COMMIT

Now that the transaction in Terminal 1 has committed, the transaction in Terminal 2 will be "unblocked", generating the following output, which shows the value left by the transaction in Terminal 1:

      k | v
    +---+----+
      1 | 10
    (1 row)

The transaction in Terminal 2 can now receive input, so let's update the row in question again:

    UPDATE kv SET v = v + 5 WHERE k = 1;
    COMMIT;

    UPDATE 1

Finally, we commit the transaction in Terminal 2:

    COMMIT;

    COMMIT

## See also

- `SELECT`
- Selection Queries
- Understanding and avoiding transaction contention