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 ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq