"The lack of indexes for the FK's will cause a share lock to be taken out on the child table when ever the parent is deleted or updated." The most recent Oracle class I took said that in 9i, this lock on the child table is taken and released immediately. Supposedly to speed the process up a bit. ----- I did consider that this might have changed in 9i. The posted didn't mention a version, so I didn't pursue it. Have you tested to see if this is what happens in 9i? Jared ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------