Re: Autonomous subtransactions

On Dec 19, 2011, at 12:31 PM, Simon Riggs wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Jim Nasby <jim(at)nasby(dot)net> wrote:
>> On Dec 18, 2011, at 2:28 AM, Gianni Ciolli wrote:
>>> I have written some notes about autonomous subtransactions, which have
>>> already been touched (at least) in two separate threads; please find
>>> them at
>>>
>>> http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Autonomous_subtransactions
>>
>> The document seems to mix the terms subtransaction and autonomous transaction. That's going to generate a ton of confusion, because both terms already have meaning associated with them:
>>
>> - Autonomous transaction means you can execute something outside of your current transaction and it is in no way effected by the current transaction (doesn't matter if T0 commits or not).
>> - Subtransactions are an alternative to savepoints. They allow you to break a large transaction into smaller chunks, but if T0 doesn't commit then none of the subtransactions do either.
>
> OK, perhaps we should just stick to the term Autonomous Transaction.
> That term is in common use, even if the usage is otherwise exactly the
> same as a subtransaction i.e. main transaction stops until the
> subtransaction is complete.

Except AFAIR Oracle uses the term to indicate something that is happening *outside* of your current transaction, which is definitely not what the proposal is talking about. I'm not wed to "subtransaction" (though I think it's a perfectly good name for this), but I definitely think calling this an "autonomous transaction" would be bad.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Database Architect jim(at)nasby(dot)net
512.569.9461 (cell) http://jim.nasby.net