How do you lock tables in SQL Server 2005, and should I even do it?

Question

This one will take some explaining. What I\'ve done is create a specific custom message queue in SQL Server 2005. I have a table with messages that contain timestamps for both a

Answer 1

Something like this

--Grab the next message id
begin tran
declare @MessageId uniqueidentifier
select top 1 @MessageId =   ActionMessageId from UnacknowledgedDemands with(holdlock, updlock);

--Acknowledge the message
update ActionMessages
set AcknowledgedTime = getdate()
where ActionMessageId = @MessageId

-- some error checking
commit tran

--Select the entire message
...
...