The default waiting period is four seconds. You can change the waiting period by choosing Tools: Settings, or at the R> prompt with the SET WAIT command.
The SET WAIT command specifies the period in seconds in which R:BASE continues to retry the last command before stopping processing. Rather than stopping processing as soon as it encounters a lock, R:BASE retries some commands. For more information about how R:BASE handles lock conflicts, see the Accessing Tables and Databases Table.
If you set the wait period too long, you can have your users sitting unproductively for long periods. Be sure you set manual table locks (discussed later) only when absolutely necessary. If users are running programs that lock tables, set resource wait periods reasonably short to avoid users leaving workstations for a long without exiting the database.
A wait period can help prevent a deadlock. A deadlock occurs if a user locks a table and then waits for a table previously locked by a second user, who in turn is waiting for the table locked by the first user.
R:BASE prevents deadlocks because a command either accesses a resource or eventually stops trying to obtain access. If you issued a command from the R> prompt, R:BASE asks you when the wait period expires whether to keep waiting or cancel the command. If the command was issued from a command file, R:BASE retries the command until the wait period expires and then proceeds to the next command.
Multi-User Mode Topics