Heavily based on material from:

Murach’s MySQL (3rd Edition), by Joel Murach

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Objectives
Applied
1. Given a set of SQL statements to be combined into a
transaction, write a script that begins, commits, and rolls back
the transaction.

Knowledge
1. Describe the use of transactions.
2. Describe the way locking helps prevent concurrency problems.
3. Describe the use of save points.
4. Describe the way the transaction isolation level affects
concurrency problems and performance.
5. Describe the options for locking selected rows and how they
can prevent concurrency problems.
6. Describe a deadlock.
7. Describe three techniques that can reduce deadlocks.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Transaction
A transaction represents a unit of work performed within a
database management system against a database, and treated in a
coherent and reliable way independent of other transactions. A
transaction generally represents any change in database.
Transactions in a database environment have two main purposes:
1. To provide reliable units of work that allow correct recovery
from failures and keep a database consistent even in cases of
system failure, when execution stops (completely or partially) and
many operations upon a database remain incomplete, with unclear
status.
2. To provide isolation between programs accessing a database
concurrently. If this isolation is not provided, the programs'
outcomes are possibly erroneous.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 ACID
Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability, is a set of
properties that guarantee that database transactions are
processed reliably.
In the context of databases, a single logical operation on the
data is called a transaction.
• For example, a transfer of funds from one bank account to
another, even involving multiple changes such as debiting
one account and crediting another, is a single transaction.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 ACID

Jim Gray defined the properties of a reliable

transaction system in the late 1970s and developed
technologies to achieve them automatically.

In 1983, Andreas Reuter and Theo Härder coined

the acronym ACID to describe them.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 ACID - Atomicity
Atomicity requires that each transaction be "all or nothing": if
one part of the transaction fails, the entire transaction fails,
and the database state is left unchanged. When any portion of
a transaction fails, the entire transaction is rolled back
(undone).
• An atomic system must guarantee atomicity in each and
every situation, including power failures, errors, and
crashes.
• To the outside world, a committed transaction appears (by
its effects on the database) to be indivisible ("atomic"),
and an aborted transaction does not happen.
• In 2009 Samoa switched from driving on the right side of
the road to the left. That is a transaction that you really
need to happen all at once.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 ACID - Consistency
The consistency property ensures that any transaction will
bring the database from one valid state to another.
• Any data written to the database must be valid according to
all defined rules, including constraints, cascades, triggers,
and any combination thereof.
• This does not guarantee correctness of the transaction in
the ways the application programmer might have wanted,
but merely that programming errors cannot result in the
violation of database defined rules.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 ACID - Isolation
The isolation property ensures that the concurrent execution
of transactions results in a system state that would be
obtained if transactions were executed serially, i.e., one after
the other.
• Providing isolation is the main goal of concurrency control.
• Depending on the concurrency control method (i.e. if it
uses strict – as opposed to relaxed – serializability), the
effects of an incomplete transaction might not even be
visible to another transaction.
• What could possibly go wrong if we act on tentative
(uncommitted) information?

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 ACID - Durability
The durability property ensures that once a transaction has
been committed, it will remain so, even in the event of power
loss, crashes, or errors.
• Once a group of SQL statements execute, the results need
to be stored permanently (even if the database crashes
immediately thereafter).
• To defend against power loss, transactions (or their effects)
must be recorded in a non-volatile memory.
• Ever have your computer crash before you’ve saved that
important Word document?

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 When to use transactions

• When you code two or more INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE

statements that affect related data (parent and child relationships).

• When you move rows from one table to another table by using
INSERT and DELETE statements. Don’t delete the data from the
existing table unless it has been copied into the new table.

• When failure of an INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement

would violate data integrity.

• A transaction can either complete successfully with a COMMIT or it

can ROLLBACK.

• A COMMIT makes the transaction complete and durable.

• A ROLLBACK returns the database to the state it was in before the

transaction began.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 We insert a new row into the invoices table. It is a new invoice for an existing vendor.

We insert a row into the invoice_line_items table, for the invoice.

When we insert a second row into the invoice_line_items table, the insert fails. The
line_item_description is invalid.

We do not want to have a partial invoice in the database, so we roll back the entire
transaction. We want to have the entire transaction or nothing.

Later, we fix the line_item_description and can insert the entire invoice.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Two transactions that retrieve and then modify the
data in the same row
Transaction A
START TRANSACTION;

UPDATE invoices SET credit_total = credit_total + 100

WHERE invoice_id = 6;

-- the SELECT statement in Transaction B

-- won't show the updated data
-- the UPDATE statement in Transaction B
-- will wait for transaction A to finish

COMMIT;

-- the SELECT statement in Transaction B

-- will display the updated data
-- the UPDATE statement in Transaction B
-- will execute immediately

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Two transactions that retrieve and then modify the
data in the same row (continued)
Transaction B
START TRANSACTION;

SELECT invoice_id, credit_total

FROM invoices WHERE invoice_id = 6;

UPDATE invoices SET credit_total = credit_total + 200

WHERE invoice_id = 6;

COMMIT;

How to test these transactions

• Open a separate connection for each transaction.
• Execute one statement at a time, alternating between the two
transactions.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Savepoint
The PostgreSQL storage engine supports the SQL
statements SAVEPOINT, ROLLBACK TO
SAVEPOINT, and RELEASE SAVEPOINT.
The SAVEPOINT statement sets a named transaction savepoint
with a name of the identifier. If the current transaction has a
savepoint with the same name, the old savepoint is deleted and a
new one is set.

The ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT statement rolls back a

transaction to the named savepoint without terminating the
transaction.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 A script that uses save points

START TRANSACTION;
SAVEPOINT before_invoice;

INSERT INTO ap.invoices

VALUES (115, 34, 'ZXA-080', '2018-01-18',
14092.59, 0, 0, 3, '2018-04-18', NULL);
SAVEPOINT before_line_item1;

INSERT INTO ap.invoice_line_items

VALUES (115, 1, 160, 4447.23, 'HW upgrade');
SAVEPOINT before_line_item2;

INSERT INTO qp.invoice_line_items

VALUES (115, 2, 167, 9645.36,'OS upgrade');
ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT before_line_item2;

ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT before_line_item1;

ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT before_invoice;

COMMIT;

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Concurrency and Locking
Concurrency is simply supporting 2 or more
transactions working on the same data at the same
time.
Concurrency is only a problem when data are being
modified by multiple transactions.
You avoid database concurrency problems by using
locks.

A lock will delay (or prevent) a transaction if it conflicts

with a transaction that is already running.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 The four types of concurrency problems
that locking can prevent

1. Lost updates
2. Dirty reads
3. Nonrepeatable reads
4. Phantom reads

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 The four types of concurrency problems
Problem Description
Lost updates Occur when two transactions select the same row
and then update the row based on the values
originally selected.
Dirty reads Occur when a transaction selects data that isn’t
(uncommitted committed by another transaction.
dependencies)
Nonrepeatable Occur when two SELECT statements of the same
reads (inconsistent data result in different values because another
analysis) transaction has updated the data in the time
between the two statements.
Phantom reads Occur when you perform an update or delete on a
set of rows when another transaction is
performing an insert or delete that affects one or
more rows in that same set of rows.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 The four types of concurrency problems, #1
Lost Updates
Lost updates occur when two or more transactions select the
same row and then update the row based on the value originally
selected. Each transaction is unaware of other transactions. The
last update overwrites updates made by the other transactions,
which results in lost data.
For example, two editors make an electronic copy of the same
document.
• Each editor changes the copy independently and then saves
the changed copy, thereby overwriting the original document.
• The editor who saves the changed copy last overwrites
changes made by the first editor.
• This problem could be avoided if the second editor could not
make changes until the first editor had finished.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 The four types of concurrency problems, #2
Dirty Read (Uncommitted Dependency)
Dirty Read occurs when a second transaction selects a row that is
being updated by another transaction. The second transaction is
reading data that has not been committed yet and may be changed by
the transaction updating the row.
For example, an editor is making changes to an electronic document.
• During the changes, a second editor takes a copy of the document
that includes all the changes made so far, and distributes the
document to the intended audience.
• The first editor then decides the changes made so far are wrong
and removes the edits and saves the document.
• The distributed document contains edits that no longer exist, and
should be treated as if they never existed.
• This problem could be avoided if no one could read the changed
document after the first editor determined that the changes were
final.
Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS
 The four types of concurrency problems, #3
Non-repeatable Read
A non-repeatable Read occurs when a second transaction accesses
the same row several times and reads different data each time. This is
similar to uncommitted dependency in that another transaction is
changing the data that a second transaction is reading. However, in
non-repeatable read, the data read by the second transaction was
committed by the first transaction. Also, non-repeatable read involves
multiple reads (two or more) of the same row and each time the
information is changed by another transaction; thus, the term non-
repeatable read.
An editor reads the same document twice, but between each reading,
the writer rewrites the document.
• When the editor reads the document for the second time, it has
changed.
• The original read was not repeatable.
• This problem could be avoided if the editor could read the document
only after the writer has finished writing it.
Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS
 The four types of concurrency problems, #4
Phantom Reads
Phantom reads occur when an insert or delete action is performed
against a row that belongs to a range of rows being read by a
transaction.
The transaction's first read of the range of rows shows a row that
no longer exists in the second or succeeding read, as a result of a
deletion by a different transaction.
Similarly, as the result of an insert by a different transaction, the
transaction's second or succeeding read shows a row that did not
exist in the original read.
• A phantom read occurs when, in the course of a transaction,
two identical queries are executed, and the collection of rows
returned by the second query is different from the first.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 How does PostgreSQL handle all these?
Isolation Level

The letter I in ACID stands for isolation and essentially

symbolizes that all transactions should run in complete
ignorance of each other. This isolation refers to writes but in
particular also to reads of data which might have been changed by
other, concurrently ongoing transactions.
• User A should not read the changes made by user B until
they are committed. Otherwise, user A would read state that is
pending for further overwrites or even possible rollback. Such
reads are known as Dirty Reads and are a very undesirable
behavior in almost every case.
• Only one of the isolation level options can be set at a time and
it remains set for that connection until it is explicitly changed.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 The concurrency problems prevented
by each transaction isolation level
“Allowed,” but treated
as read committed.
Isolation level Problems prevented
READ UNCOMMITTED Not allowed in PostgreSQL
READ COMMITTED Dirty reads
REPEATABLE READ Dirty reads, lost updates, nonrepeatable
reads
SERIALIZABLE All
Nonrepeatable Serialization
Isolation Level Dirty Read Phantom Read
Read Anomaly
Read Allowed, but not
Possible Possible Possible
uncommitted in PosgreSQL
Read
Not possible Possible Possible Possible
committed
Repeatable Allowed, but not
Not possible Not possible Possible
read in PostgreSQL
Serializable
Jesse Chaney
Not possible Not possible Not possible Not possible
CS486/586 Intro DBMS
 The syntax of the SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION
LEVEL statement
SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL
{READ UNCOMMITTED|READ COMMITTED|
REPEATABLE READ|SERIALIZABLE} ;

Set the level to SERIALIZABLE

for the next transaction
SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SERIALIZABLE;

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Isolation Levels, #1

Read Uncommitted (aka dirty read)

A transaction T1 executing under this isolation level can access data
changed by concurrent transaction(s). For example, if a concurrent
transaction T2 updates a row R1, it can still be read under T1 even
though T2 can potentially roll back later.
• Pros: No read locks needed to read data (i.e. no reader/writer
blocking). Note, T1 still takes transaction duration locks for any
data modified.
• Cons: Data are not guaranteed to be transactionally consistent!
• Usage: It is typically used in queries/applications where data
inconsistency can be tolerated.
• For example, computing average salary of employees.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Isolation Levels, #2
Read Committed
A transaction T1 executing under this isolation level can only
access committed data. For example, if a concurrent transaction
T2 updates a row R1, it cannot be accessed under T1, in fact T1
will get blocked until T2 either commits or rolls back.
• Pros: Good compromise between concurrency and
consistency.
• Cons: Locking and blocking. The data can change when
accessed multiple times within the same transaction.
• Usage: Very commonly used isolation level.
• This is the default isolation level for PostgreSQL.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Isolation Levels, #3
Repeatable Read
A transaction T1 executing under this isolation level can only
access committed data with an additional guarantee that any data
read cannot change (i.e. it is repeatable) for the duration of the
transaction.
• Pros: Higher data consistency.
• Cons: Locking and blocking. The locks are held for the
duration of the transaction that can lower the concurrency. It
does not protect against phantom rows.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Isolation Levels, #4
Serializable
A transaction executing under this isolation level provides the
highest data consistency including elimination of phantoms but
at the cost of reduced concurrency. It prevents phantoms by
taking a range lock or table level lock if range lock can’t be
acquired (i.e. no index on the predicate column) for the duration of
the transaction.
• Pros: Full data consistency including phantom protection.
Serializable isolation level guarantees transactions will end up
with one possible serial order with an appearance that
concurrent transactions did not interfere with each other.
• Cons: Locking and blocking. The locks are held for the
duration of the transaction that can lower the concurrency.
• Usage: It is used in cases where data consistency is an
absolute requirement.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Why not always use Serializable?

The question arises why PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server, and

Oracle (and others), NOT set Serializable as default isolation
level?
The typical answer is: complexity of the implementation which
imposes a certain amount of overhead and possibly poor
performance.
Essentially it boils down to real locking, as well as discovering
and preventing deadlocks.
Oh yes, and performance.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Four transactions that show how to work
with locking reads In some cases, the default isolation
level of REPEATABLE READ doesn’t
Transaction A work the way you want.
-- lock row with rep_id of 2 in parent table
SELECT * FROM sales_reps WHERE rep_id = 2 FOR SHARE;

-- Transaction B waits for transaction A to finish

-- Transaction C returns an error immediately
-- Transaction D skips the locked row and returns
-- the other rows immediately

-- insert row with rep_id of 2 into child table

INSERT INTO sales_totals
(rep_id, sales_year, sales_total)
• You can add a FOR SHARE
VALUES (2, 2019, 138193.69); clause to the end of a SELECT
statement.
COMMIT; -- Transaction B executes now • This locks the selected rows so
other transactions can read
them but can’t modify them
until your transaction commits.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Four transactions that show how to work
with locking reads (continued)
Transaction B
START TRANSACTION;
SELECT * FROM sales_reps WHERE rep_id < 5 FOR UPDATE;
COMMIT;

Transaction C
You can add a FOR UPDATE clause
START TRANSACTION; to the end of a SELECT statement.
SELECT * FROM sales_reps WHERE rep_id < 5 • This locks the selected rows
FOR UPDATE NOWAIT; and any associated indexes just
COMMIT; like an UPDATE statement
does.
• Then, other transactions can’t
read or modify these rows until
A locking read that uses NOWAIT never your transaction commits.
waits to acquire a row lock. The query
executes immediately, failing with an
error if a requested row is locked.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Four transactions that show how to work
with locking reads (continued)
Transaction D
START TRANSACTION;
SELECT * FROM sales_reps WHERE rep_id < 5
FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED;
COMMIT;
This is often done in cursors.

A locking read that uses SKIP LOCKED

never waits to acquire a row lock. The
query executes immediately, removing
locked rows from the result set.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 How to test the transactions for locking reads
• Open a separate connection for transaction A and one of the
other transactions.
• Execute one statement at a time, alternating between the two
transactions.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 UPDATE statements that illustrate deadlocking
Transaction A
START TRANSACTION;
UPDATE savings SET balance = balance - transfer_amount;
UPDATE checking SET balance = balance + transfer_amount;
COMMIT;
Transaction B (possible deadlock)
START TRANSACTION;
UPDATE checking SET balance = balance - transfer_amount;
UPDATE savings SET balance = balance + transfer_amount;
COMMIT;

Transaction B (prevents deadlocks)

START TRANSACTION;
UPDATE savings SET balance = balance + transfer_amount;
UPDATE checking SET balance = balance - transfer_amount;
COMMIT;

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 How to prevent deadlocks
• Don’t allow transactions to remain open for very long.
• Don’t use a transaction isolation level higher than necessary.
• Make large changes when you can be assured of nearly
exclusive access.
• Consider locking when coding your transactions.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Why do we have all these locking modes?
Deadlocking
• A deadlock occurs when there is a cyclic dependency
between two or more threads/transaction for some set of resources.
• Deadlock is a condition that can occur on any system with
concurrent resource access, not just on a relational database
management system.
• A thread in a multi-threaded system may acquire one or more
resources (for example, locks).
• If the resource being acquired is currently owned by another
thread, the first thread may have to wait for the owning thread
to release the target resource.
• The waiting thread is said to have a dependency on the owning
thread for that particular resource.
• Deadlocks are sometimes called the “deadly embrace.”

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS
 How the deadlock occurs
1. Transaction A requests and acquires a lock on the
invoice_line_items table.
2. Transaction B requests and acquires a lock on the
invoices table.
3. Transaction A tries to acquire an lock on the invoices
table to perform the update.
• Since transaction B already holds a shared lock on this
table, transaction A must wait for the exclusive lock.
4. Transaction B tries to acquire an lock on the
invoice_line_items table, but must wait because
transaction A holds a shared lock on that table.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Deadlock vs Normal Blocking
Deadlocking is often confused with normal blocking.
• When one transaction has a lock on a resource that another
transaction wants, the second transaction waits for the lock to
be released.
• By default, PostgreSQL Server transactions do not time out.
• The second transaction is blocked, not deadlocked.
• Blocking can occur on any lock, but blocking exposure is
increased when there are many locks lock.
• Blocking is normal and should be expected.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Coding techniques that help prevent deadlocks
Don’t allow transactions to remain open
for very long
• Keep transactions short.
• Keep SELECT statements outside of the transaction except
when absolutely necessary.
• Never code requests for user input during an open transaction.
Use the lowest possible transaction isolation level
• The default level of READ COMMITTED is almost always
sufficient.
• Reserve the use of higher levels for short transactions that make
changes to data where integrity is vital.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS

 Coding techniques that help prevent deadlocks
(continued)
Make large changes when you can be assured
of nearly exclusive access
• If you need to change millions of rows in an active table, don’t
do so during hours of peak usage.
• If possible, give yourself exclusive access to the database
before making large changes.
Consider locking when coding your transactions
• If you need to code two or more transactions that update the
same resources, code the updates in the same order in each
transaction.

Jesse Chaney CS486/586 Intro DBMS