Thanks Chris and Karsten. I still don't quite understand why invalid state/record-mismatch would also not trigger auto rollback. How can I even include something *outside* a transaction *inside* it- shouldn't everything between "begin" and "end" be subject to auto rollback no matter what? Also what is the best way to check if transaction is 'read write' after doing 'pg_query("begin transaction read write;", $connection);'. pg_transaction_status() doesn't quite do it (read write=?=2). http://us2.php.net/function.pg_transaction_status "The status can be PGSQL_TRANSACTION_IDLE (currently idle), PGSQL_TRANSACTION_ACTIVE (a command is in progress), PGSQL_TRANSACTION_INTRANS (idle, in a valid transaction block), or PGSQL_TRANSACTION_INERROR (idle, in a failed transaction block). PGSQL_TRANSACTION_UNKNOWN is reported if the connection is bad. PGSQL_TRANSACTION_ACTIVE is reported only when a query has been sent to the server and not yet completed." Cheers, Bill On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 3:02 AM, Karsten Hilbert <Karsten.Hilbert@xxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 01:15:30PM +1000, Chris wrote: > >> >> Now *any* error inside transaction will trigger auto rollback for >> >> *all* inserts so I don't need to explicitly issue conditional >> >> rollback? Also is "begin/commit transaction" == "start/end >> >> transaction"?? >> >> What if something gets an invalid state (eg you expect a record to have >> 'active = 156' but it's something else). >> >> So in some cases yes you'll need to do a rollback. On the other hand, if >> you don't explicitly do a commit, everything is rolled back. >> >> Yes "begin" == "start transaction" and "commit" == "end transaction". > > "commit" really is not a well-chosen name for what it is. It > is often clearer to think in terms of the triple > > begin > > rollback > end > > where begin/end are the standard begin/end transaction > commands while rollback is only ever needed when you detect > a condition someplace logically *outside* the transaction > itself and based on that want to undo the transaction that > is in progress. > > Because no matter whether you issue commit or rollback - if > there was an error *inside* the transaction it'll rollback > in any case (unless the error was handled somehow). > > Karsten > -- > GPG key ID E4071346 @ wwwkeys.pgp.net > E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346 > > -- > Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) > To make changes to your subscription: > http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general