Re: BEGIN inside transaction should be an error

On 5/10/06, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org> writes:
> > How do other database deal with this? Either they nest BEGIN/COMMIT or
> > they probably throw an error without aborting the transaction, which is
> > pretty much what we do. Is there a database that actually aborts a
> > whole transaction just for an extraneous begin?
>
> Probably not.  The SQL99 spec does say (in describing START TRANSACTION,
> which is the standard spelling of BEGIN)
>
>          1) If a <start transaction statement> statement is executed when an
>             SQL-transaction is currently active, then an exception condition
>             is raised: invalid transaction state - active SQL-transaction.
>
> *However*, they are almost certainly expecting that that condition only
> causes the START command to be ignored; not that it should bounce the
> whole transaction.  So I think the argument that this is required by
> the spec is a bit off base.
>
>                         regards, tom lane
>

Well, actually informix throw an error... at least, my 4gl programs
always abort when a second "begin work" is found inside a
transaction...

--
regards,
Jaime Casanova

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to
build bigger and better idiot-proof programs and the universe trying
to produce bigger and better idiots.
So far, the universe is winning."                                      Richard Cook