Implicit locking of MyISAM tables during transaction

[Syed Hashmi]

Hi:
I am exclusively using innodb in an application but I needed sequence values for some high insert tables so I am using a separate table with LAST_INSERT_ID() to generate sequences as mentioned in the manual.

I didn't want the sequence table to remain locked while a transaction is going on (as many other threads need the sequence from the same table and same row) so I changed table type to MyISAM.

I was hoping that MyISAM being non-transactional will serve sequence values to all threads concurrently. But to me it appears that when I do a START TRANSACTION the MySQL locks the MyISAM table as well and keeps it locked until the Transaction is released.

Can someone confirm this behavior? Is there a way I can see locks on MyISAM tables?

Syed