Added an explanation of transactions and grouped low-level APIs.

This commit is contained in:
Aymeric Augustin 2013-03-07 14:42:51 +01:00
parent ffe41591e7
commit 17cf29920b
1 changed files with 122 additions and 80 deletions

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@ -164,10 +164,131 @@ Django provides a single API to control database transactions.
- releases or rolls back to the savepoint when exiting an inner block;
- commits or rolls back the transaction when exiting the outermost block.
Autocommit
==========
.. _autocommit-details:
Why Django uses autocommit
--------------------------
In the SQL standards, each SQL query starts a transaction, unless one is
already in progress. Such transactions must then be committed or rolled back.
This isn't always convenient for application developers. To alleviate this
problem, most databases provide an autocommit mode. When autocommit is turned
on, each SQL query is wrapped in its own transaction. In other words, the
transaction is not only automatically started, but also automatically
committed.
:pep:`249`, the Python Database API Specification v2.0, requires autocommit to
be initially turned off. Django overrides this default and turns autocommit
on.
To avoid this, you can :ref:`deactivate the transaction management
<deactivate-transaction-management>`, but it isn't recommended.
.. versionchanged:: 1.6
Before Django 1.6, autocommit was turned off, and it was emulated by
forcing a commit after write operations in the ORM.
.. warning::
If you're using the database API directly — for instance, you're running
SQL queries with ``cursor.execute()`` — be aware that autocommit is on,
and consider wrapping your operations in a transaction, with
:func:`atomic`, to ensure consistency.
.. _deactivate-transaction-management:
Deactivating transaction management
-----------------------------------
You can totally disable Django's transaction management for a given database
by setting :setting:`AUTOCOMMIT <DATABASE-AUTOCOMMIT>` to ``False`` in its
configuration. If you do this, Django won't enable autocommit, and won't
perform any commits. You'll get the regular behavior of the underlying
database library.
This requires you to commit explicitly every transaction, even those started
by Django or by third-party libraries. Thus, this is best used in situations
where you want to run your own transaction-controlling middleware or do
something really strange.
.. versionchanged:: 1.6
This used to be controlled by the ``TRANSACTIONS_MANAGED`` setting.
Low-level APIs
==============
.. warning::
Always prefer :func:`atomic` if possible at all. It accounts for the
idiosyncrasies of each database and prevents invalid operations.
The low level APIs are only useful if you're implementing your own
transaction management.
.. _managing-autocommit:
Autocommit
----------
.. versionadded:: 1.6
Django provides a straightforward API to manage the autocommit state of each
database connection, if you need to.
.. function:: get_autocommit(using=None)
.. function:: set_autocommit(using=None, autocommit=True)
These functions take a ``using`` argument which should be the name of a
database. If it isn't provided, Django uses the ``"default"`` database.
Autocommit is initially turned on. If you turn it off, it's your
responsibility to restore it.
Once you turn autocommit off, you get the default behavior of your database
adapter, and Django won't help you. Although that behavior is specified in
:pep:`249`, implementations of adapters aren't always consistent with one
another. Review the documentation of the adapter you're using carefully.
You must ensure that no transaction is active, usually by issuing a
:func:`commit` or a :func:`rollback`, before turning autocommit back on.
:func:`atomic` requires autocommit to be turned on; it will raise an exception
if autocommit is off. Django will also refuse to turn autocommit off when an
:func:`atomic` block is active, because that would break atomicity.
Transactions
------------
A transaction is an atomic set of database queries. Even if your program
crashes, the database guarantees that either all the changes will be applied,
or none of them.
Django doesn't provide an API to start a transaction. The expected way to
start a transaction is to disable autocommit with :func:`set_autocommit`.
Once you're in a transaction, you can choose either to apply the changes
you've performed until this point with :func:`commit`, or to cancel them with
:func:`rollback`.
.. function:: commit(using=None)
.. function:: rollback(using=None)
These functions take a ``using`` argument which should be the name of a
database. If it isn't provided, Django uses the ``"default"`` database.
Django will refuse to commit or to rollback when an :func:`atomic` block is
active, because that would break atomicity.
.. _topics-db-transactions-savepoints:
Savepoints
==========
----------
A savepoint is a marker within a transaction that enables you to roll back
part of a transaction, rather than the full transaction. Savepoints are
@ -243,85 +364,6 @@ The following example demonstrates the use of savepoints::
transaction.savepoint_rollback(sid)
# open transaction now contains only a.save()
Autocommit
==========
.. _autocommit-details:
Why Django uses autocommit
--------------------------
In the SQL standards, each SQL query starts a transaction, unless one is
already in progress. Such transactions must then be committed or rolled back.
This isn't always convenient for application developers. To alleviate this
problem, most databases provide an autocommit mode. When autocommit is turned
on, each SQL query is wrapped in its own transaction. In other words, the
transaction is not only automatically started, but also automatically
committed.
:pep:`249`, the Python Database API Specification v2.0, requires autocommit to
be initially turned off. Django overrides this default and turns autocommit
on.
To avoid this, you can :ref:`deactivate the transaction management
<deactivate-transaction-management>`, but it isn't recommended.
.. versionchanged:: 1.6
Before Django 1.6, autocommit was turned off, and it was emulated by
forcing a commit after write operations in the ORM.
.. warning::
If you're using the database API directly — for instance, you're running
SQL queries with ``cursor.execute()`` — be aware that autocommit is on,
and consider wrapping your operations in a transaction, with
:func:`atomic`, to ensure consistency.
.. _managing-autocommit:
Managing autocommit
-------------------
.. versionadded:: 1.6
Django provides a straightforward API to manage the autocommit state of each
database connection, if you need to.
.. function:: get_autocommit(using=None)
.. function:: set_autocommit(using=None, autocommit=True)
These functions take a ``using`` argument which should be the name of a
database. If it isn't provided, Django uses the ``"default"`` database.
Autocommit is initially turned on. If you turn it off, it's your
responsibility to restore it.
:func:`atomic` requires autocommit to be turned on; it will raise an exception
if autocommit is off. Django will also refuse to turn autocommit off when an
:func:`atomic` block is active, because that would break atomicity.
.. _deactivate-transaction-management:
Deactivating transaction management
-----------------------------------
You can totally disable Django's transaction management for a given database
by setting :setting:`AUTOCOMMIT <DATABASE-AUTOCOMMIT>` to ``False`` in its
configuration. If you do this, Django won't enable autocommit, and won't
perform any commits. You'll get the regular behavior of the underlying
database library.
This requires you to commit explicitly every transaction, even those started
by Django or by third-party libraries. Thus, this is best used in situations
where you want to run your own transaction-controlling middleware or do
something really strange.
.. versionchanged:: 1.6
This used to be controlled by the ``TRANSACTIONS_MANAGED`` setting.
Database-specific notes
=======================