SQL Server -NOLOCK query

What is a NOLOCK?

Using NOLOCK politely asks SQL Server to ignore locks and read directly from the tables. This means you completely circumvent the lock system, which is a major performance and scalability improvement. However, you also completely circumvent the lock system, which means your code is living dangerously. You might read the not-necessarily-valid uncommitted modifications of a running transaction. This is a calculated risk.

ex:

BEGIN TRANSACTION
      INSERT INTO SalesHistory
      (Product, SaleDate, SalePrice)          
      VALUES            
      ('PoolTable', GETDATE(), 500)   

The transaction is still open, which means that the record that was inserted into the table still has locks issued against it. In a new query window, run the following script, which uses the NOLOCK table hint in returning the number of records in the SalesHistory table.

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SalesHistory WITH(NOLOCK)

The number of records returned is 301. Since the transaction that entered the record into the SalesHistory table has not been committed, I can undo it. I'll roll back the transaction by issuing the following statement:

ROLLBACK TRANSACTION

This statement removes the record from the SalesHistory table that I previously inserted. Now I run the same SELECT statement that I ran earlier:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SalesHistory WITH(NOLOCK)

This time the record count returned is 300. My first query read a record that was not yet committed -- this is a dirty read.