SET TRANSACTION(7) PostgreSQL 15.7 Documentation SET TRANSACTION(7)
NAME
SET_TRANSACTION - set the characteristics of the current transaction
SYNOPSIS
SET TRANSACTION transaction_mode [, ...]
SET TRANSACTION SNAPSHOT snapshot_id
SET SESSION CHARACTERISTICS AS TRANSACTION transaction_mode [, ...]
where transaction_mode is one of:
ISOLATION LEVEL { SERIALIZABLE | REPEATABLE READ | READ COMMITTED | READ UNCOMMITTED }
READ WRITE | READ ONLY
[ NOT ] DEFERRABLE
DESCRIPTION
The SET TRANSACTION command sets the characteristics of the current
transaction. It has no effect on any subsequent transactions. SET
SESSION CHARACTERISTICS sets the default transaction characteristics
for subsequent transactions of a session. These defaults can be
overridden by SET TRANSACTION for an individual transaction.
The available transaction characteristics are the transaction isolation
level, the transaction access mode (read/write or read-only), and the
deferrable mode. In addition, a snapshot can be selected, though only
for the current transaction, not as a session default.
The isolation level of a transaction determines what data the
transaction can see when other transactions are running concurrently:
READ COMMITTED
A statement can only see rows committed before it began. This is
the default.
REPEATABLE READ
All statements of the current transaction can only see rows
committed before the first query or data-modification statement was
executed in this transaction.
SERIALIZABLE
All statements of the current transaction can only see rows
committed before the first query or data-modification statement was
executed in this transaction. If a pattern of reads and writes
among concurrent serializable transactions would create a situation
which could not have occurred for any serial (one-at-a-time)
execution of those transactions, one of them will be rolled back
with a serialization_failure error.
The SQL standard defines one additional level, READ UNCOMMITTED. In
PostgreSQL READ UNCOMMITTED is treated as READ COMMITTED.
The transaction isolation level cannot be changed after the first query
or data-modification statement (SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE, MERGE,
FETCH, or COPY) of a transaction has been executed. See Chapter 13 for
more information about transaction isolation and concurrency control.
The transaction access mode determines whether the transaction is
read/write or read-only. Read/write is the default. When a transaction
is read-only, the following SQL commands are disallowed: INSERT,
UPDATE, DELETE, MERGE, and COPY FROM if the table they would write to
is not a temporary table; all CREATE, ALTER, and DROP commands;
COMMENT, GRANT, REVOKE, TRUNCATE; and EXPLAIN ANALYZE and EXECUTE if
the command they would execute is among those listed. This is a
high-level notion of read-only that does not prevent all writes to
disk.
The DEFERRABLE transaction property has no effect unless the
transaction is also SERIALIZABLE and READ ONLY. When all three of these
properties are selected for a transaction, the transaction may block
when first acquiring its snapshot, after which it is able to run
without the normal overhead of a SERIALIZABLE transaction and without
any risk of contributing to or being canceled by a serialization
failure. This mode is well suited for long-running reports or backups.
The SET TRANSACTION SNAPSHOT command allows a new transaction to run
with the same snapshot as an existing transaction. The pre-existing
transaction must have exported its snapshot with the pg_export_snapshot
function (see Section 9.27.5). That function returns a snapshot
identifier, which must be given to SET TRANSACTION SNAPSHOT to specify
which snapshot is to be imported. The identifier must be written as a
string literal in this command, for example '00000003-0000001B-1'. SET
TRANSACTION SNAPSHOT can only be executed at the start of a
transaction, before the first query or data-modification statement
(SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE, MERGE, FETCH, or COPY) of the
transaction. Furthermore, the transaction must already be set to
SERIALIZABLE or REPEATABLE READ isolation level (otherwise, the
snapshot would be discarded immediately, since READ COMMITTED mode
takes a new snapshot for each command). If the importing transaction
uses SERIALIZABLE isolation level, then the transaction that exported
the snapshot must also use that isolation level. Also, a non-read-only
serializable transaction cannot import a snapshot from a read-only
transaction.
NOTES
If SET TRANSACTION is executed without a prior START TRANSACTION or
BEGIN, it emits a warning and otherwise has no effect.
It is possible to dispense with SET TRANSACTION by instead specifying
the desired transaction_modes in BEGIN or START TRANSACTION. But that
option is not available for SET TRANSACTION SNAPSHOT.
The session default transaction modes can also be set or examined via
the configuration parameters default_transaction_isolation,
default_transaction_read_only, and default_transaction_deferrable. (In
fact SET SESSION CHARACTERISTICS is just a verbose equivalent for
setting these variables with SET.) This means the defaults can be set
in the configuration file, via ALTER DATABASE, etc. Consult Chapter 20
for more information.
The current transaction's modes can similarly be set or examined via
the configuration parameters transaction_isolation,
transaction_read_only, and transaction_deferrable. Setting one of these
parameters acts the same as the corresponding SET TRANSACTION option,
with the same restrictions on when it can be done. However, these
parameters cannot be set in the configuration file, or from any source
other than live SQL.
EXAMPLES
To begin a new transaction with the same snapshot as an already
existing transaction, first export the snapshot from the existing
transaction. That will return the snapshot identifier, for example:
BEGIN TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL REPEATABLE READ;
SELECT pg_export_snapshot();
pg_export_snapshot
---------------------
00000003-0000001B-1
(1 row)
Then give the snapshot identifier in a SET TRANSACTION SNAPSHOT command
at the beginning of the newly opened transaction:
BEGIN TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL REPEATABLE READ;
SET TRANSACTION SNAPSHOT '00000003-0000001B-1';
COMPATIBILITY
These commands are defined in the SQL standard, except for the
DEFERRABLE transaction mode and the SET TRANSACTION SNAPSHOT form,
which are PostgreSQL extensions.
SERIALIZABLE is the default transaction isolation level in the
standard. In PostgreSQL the default is ordinarily READ COMMITTED, but
you can change it as mentioned above.
In the SQL standard, there is one other transaction characteristic that
can be set with these commands: the size of the diagnostics area. This
concept is specific to embedded SQL, and therefore is not implemented
in the PostgreSQL server.
The SQL standard requires commas between successive transaction_modes,
but for historical reasons PostgreSQL allows the commas to be omitted.
PostgreSQL 15.7 2024 SET TRANSACTION(7)
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