Question

In azure table storage. Is there a way to get the new timestamp value after an update or insert. I am writing a 3-phase commit protocol to get table storage to support distributed transactions , and it involes multiple writes to the same entity. So the operation order goes like this, Read Entity, Write Entity (Lock Item), Write Entity (Commit new values). I would like to get the new timestamp after the lock item operation so I don’t have to unecessarily read the item again before doing the commit new value operation. So does any one know how to efficiently get the new timestamp value after a savechanges operation?

Answer 1

I don’t think you need to do anything special/extra. When you read your entity you will get an Etag for it. When you save that entity (setting someLock=true) that save will only succeed if nobody else have updated the entity since your read. Hence you know you have the lock. And then you can do your second write as you please.