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copied!<p>Steven Devijver provided some good reasons for starting transactions even if the operations are only going read the database:</p> <ul> <li>Set timeouts or lock modes</li> <li>Set isolation level</li> </ul> <p>Standard SQL requires that even a query must start a new transaction if there is no transaction currently in progress. There are DBMS where that is not what happens - those with an autocommit mode, for example (the statement starts a transaction and commits it immediately the statement completes). Other DBMS make statements atomic (effectively autocommit) by default, but start an explicit transaction with a statement such as 'BEGIN WORK', cancelling autocommit until the next COMMIT or ROLLBACK (IBM Informix Dynamic Server is one such - when the database is not MODE ANSI).</p> <p>I'm not sure about the advice never to rollback. It makes no difference to the read-only transaction, and to the extent it annoys your DBAs, then it is better to avoid ROLLBACK. But if your program exits without doing a COMMIT, the DBMS should do a ROLLBACK on your incomplete transaction - certainly if it modified the database, and (for simplicity) even if you only selected data.</p> <p>Overall, if you want to change the default behaviour of a series of operations, use a transaction, even if the transaction is read-only. If you are satisfied with the default behaviour, then it is not crucial to use a transaction. If your code is to be portable between DBMS, it is best to assume that you will need a transaction.</p>

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