Multiple selects in a transaction?

[Ken Williams]

Hi, I have a question.

I need to check all the balances in set of tables at a point in time. But this operation could be lengthy (say 5 minutes) for it to do a bunch of selects, calculate some balances, and spit out a number. During this 5 minute span there will also be many inserts into these same tables that will effect the balances.

How do I handle this? I don't need to include the extra inserts during this operation. But I don't want to lock the tables and stop the inserts from happening either as the site still has to function properly while I do my operation.

If I wrap all my operation's selects in a transaction will that do all the selects at one point in time only leaving the tables unlocked for normal use? It's my lack of understanding that confuses me, I don't know what MySQL does.

I guess I need to lock without locking. Is that a thing?