Transaction control with DBTools 3.1

Supported features include:

• Non-transaction login databases are supported (INFORMIX)
• Nested transactions are supported (SYBASE, MS SQL SERVER)
• Savepoints are supported (SYBASE, ORACLE, MS SQL SERVER)
• Named transactions are supported (SYBASE, MS SQL SERVER)
• Non-supported features on a particular database will be ignored (i.e. code is portable).

There are no longer any commands that implicitly starts a transaction (e.g. writable cursors). It is up to the user to explicitly call the transaction control commands (beginTransaction(), rollbackTransaction(), commitTransaction()).

• Connections are always created auto-committed.
• Connection::beginTransaction() begins transaction.
• Connection::rollbackTranction(savepoint) rolls back to save point.
• Connection::rollbackTranction() rolls back to begin transaction and ends transaction control.
• Connection::commitTransaction() commits paired transaction. An optional savepoint argument is available. If the database does not support nested transactions, the outer transaction is committed.

For those familiar with previous transaction control functionality:

DBTools autoCommit function has been obsolesced which means DBTools internal API will not rely on it. User?s autoCommit setting will not affect transaction control.

Backward compatibility (for those who have applications using DBTools 3.0.2, or earlier, transaction control protocol):

• Applications which use the old transaction protocol will compile, but might not act in the same manner.
• Applications which use transactions with beginTransaction() will act properly.
• Applications which use transactions without beginTransaction() will not act properly.

• Replacing autoCommit(FALSE) with beginTransaction() will suffice for most programs.
• Applications which use cursor for update on ORACLE or INFORMIX will not act properly. You will have to change your code to not rely on an implicit transaction being started. Nesting your cursor control code inside cn.beginTransaction() and cn.commitTransaction() will emulate the old behavior. Note: If you don't nest your writable cursor code inside a transaction your program will likely encounter serious problems.
• Nested transactions will now work, i.e. there are no transactions going on in the background.
• Named transactions and savepoint features have been introduced.