START_TRANSACTION - start a transaction block
Contents
Compatibility
In the standard, it is not necessary to issue STARTTRANSACTION to start a transaction block: any SQL
command implicitly begins a block. PostgreSQL's behavior can be seen as implicitly issuing a COMMIT
after each command that does not follow STARTTRANSACTION (or BEGIN), and it is therefore often called
“autocommit”. Other relational database systems might offer an autocommit feature as a convenience.
The DEFERRABLE transaction_mode is a PostgreSQL language extension.
The SQL standard requires commas between successive transaction_modes, but for historical reasons
PostgreSQL allows the commas to be omitted.
See also the compatibility section of SET TRANSACTION (SET_TRANSACTION(7)).
Description
This command begins a new transaction block. If the isolation level, read/write mode, or deferrable mode
is specified, the new transaction has those characteristics, as if SETTRANSACTION was executed. This is
the same as the BEGIN command.
Name
START_TRANSACTION - start a transaction block
Parameters
Refer to SET TRANSACTION (SET_TRANSACTION(7)) for information on the meaning of the parameters to this
statement.
See Also
BEGIN(7), COMMIT(7), ROLLBACK(7), SAVEPOINT(7), SET TRANSACTION (SET_TRANSACTION(7)) PostgreSQL 17.5 2025 STARTTRANSACTION(7)
Synopsis
START TRANSACTION [ transaction_mode [, ...] ]
where transaction_mode is one of:
ISOLATION LEVEL { SERIALIZABLE | REPEATABLE READ | READ COMMITTED | READ UNCOMMITTED }
READ WRITE | READ ONLY
[ NOT ] DEFERRABLE
