PostgreSQL 8.0.1 Documentation
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START TRANSACTION

Name

START TRANSACTION -- start a transaction block

Synopsis

START TRANSACTION [ transaction_mode [, ...] ]where transaction_mode is one of: ISOLATION LEVEL { SERIALIZABLE | REPEATABLE READ | READ COMMITTED | READ UNCOMMITTED } READ WRITE | READ ONLY

Description

This command begins a new transaction block. If the isolation level or read/write mode is specified, the new transaction has those characteristics, as if SET TRANSACTION was executed. This is the same as the BEGIN command.

Parameters

Refer to SET TRANSACTION for information on the meaning of the parameters to this statement.

Compatibility

In the standard, it is not necessary to issue START TRANSACTION to start a transaction block: any SQL command implicitly begins a block. PostgreSQL's behavior can be seen as implicitly issuing a COMMIT after each command that does not follow START TRANSACTION (or BEGIN), and it is therefore often called "autocommit". Other relational database systems may offer an autocommit feature as a convenience.

The SQL standard requires commas between successive transaction_modes, but for historical reasons PostgreSQL allows the commas to be omitted.

See also the compatibility section of SET TRANSACTION.