Hi there,

I'm just getting started with GameSparks and I haven't been able to find much info about this.

It doesn't seem that a runtime collection can be locked explicitly, but this topic says that locks happen automatically; would it be possible to get clarification on what that means? Would the first read request on a runtime collection in a cloud code script automatically secure a lock on that collection for the entire runtime of that script?

I'm looking at a use case where I need to randomly generate a unique user-friendly string, which involves checking the record for existence before inserting. I need to be sure that the state of the collection hasn't changed between the moment I check and the moment I insert. Will that 'work' automatically?

It won't work automatically. What they're talking about there is for a single operation on the runtime collection.

Checking for the existence of the string, and then inserting it are 2 operations. Anything can happen in between them.

What you could do is, create a unique index on your field (https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/core/index-unique/), and then if someone has already inserted that string, your insert operation will fail as you want.