Lock innoDB table temporarily

I make bigger inserts consisting of a couple of thousand rows in my current web app and I would like to make sure that no one can do anything but read the table, until the insert开发者_开发知识库s have been done.

What is the best way to do this while keeping the read availability open for normal, non-admin users?

Thanks!

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You may also need to change default isolation level:

 set transaction isolation level serializable;
 start transaction;
 // insert data
 commit

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Since you're only inserting (not updating) this shouldn't be a problem. Just insert the records in a single transaction.

InnoDB supports row level locking if I recall correctly so even updates shouldn't be a problem.

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Why not just do the insert in one big transaction? That would kind of prevent the need for any locking.