Re: autocommit to off?

On Wed, 3 Mar 2004, Bricklen wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've scoured the net for a simple way to set AUTOCOMMIT off in psql, for
> the duration of a session (not simply a transaction). The only real
> reference that I can find says that "\set autocommit off" will do what I
> want. It doesn't though. For example, if session A inserts a row, then
> session B has access to that data immediately (from another terminal).
>
> I realize that you can fire off a begin/end pair for every statement,
> but I'm looking for something more global.
>
> Oracle's SQL*Plus is what I'm used to, which is the reason that I'm asking.
>
> Feel free to correct any (mis)understandings I have of psql.

There was once a grand experiment in support autocommit = off on the
server side.  After the fires were put out, it was decided to leave it in
userland.

the standard way of "turning off" autocommit is to issue a begin; before
you do anything.  Then, should all go well you can commit; or rollback;
should things go horribly wrong.  should an error occur, Postgresql will
rollback automagically when you try to commit.

begin;
insert 1000 rows;
commit;