Database locking is required if more than one process will try to modify the data. In an environment in which there are both reading and writing processes, the reading processes should use locking as well, since it's possible for another process to modify the resource at the same moment, in which case the reading process gets corrupted data.

We distinguish between shared-access and exclusive-access locks. Before doing an operation on the DBM file, an exclusive lock request is issued if a read/write access is required. Otherwise, a shared lock is issued.