Locking tables for SELECTs only

[Tyler Hall]

I have a queuing system where multiple boxes all try to grab requests from the master MySQL server.

The problem is that these boxes are grabbing them at the exact same time, getting the same data as another box, causing duplicate work to be preformed.

I could do a RAND on the select, but I prefer it always grab the oldest entry in the queue that isn't processing, so I was wondering if there was a way to LOCK a table for read only, so as a request came in, I would lock table, grab the entry, delete it, unlock.

Thanks.