Sort locks apply to the disk space being used for disk sort operations. There are two types of sort locks: temporary table locks and sort segment locks. These correspond to temporary segments in PERMANENT tablespaces and TEMPORARY tablespaces respectively. There are fixed arrays in the SGA for each type of sort lock. Both arrays are sized by the SESSIONS parameter, which allows for the maximum possible usage of sort locks.
Sort locks are used merely to track disk sort space usage, and do not suffer from lock conflicts, waits, or deadlocks. However, you should not confuse sort locks with the ST (space transaction) enqueue , which is extremely prone to lock conflicts, waits, and even deadlocks. Contention for the ST enqueue is often associated with disk sorts, because it is needed for the creation, extension, and deallocation of temporary segments.
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