Re: Vote totals for SET in aborted transaction

On Mon, 29 Apr 2002, Tom Lane wrote:

> Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@ihs.com> writes:
> > I've been thinking this over and over, and it seems to me, that the way
> > SETS in transactions SHOULD work is that they are all rolled back, period,
> > whether the transaction successfully completes OR NOT.
>
> This would make it impossible for SET to have any persistent effect
> at all.  (Every SQL command is inside a transaction --- an
> implicitly-established one if necesary, but there is one.)

Why?  What I think Scott is proposing is that on COMMIT *or* ABORT, all
SETs since the BEGIN are reversed ... hrmmm ... that didnt' sound right
either ... is there no way of distiguishing between an IMPLICT transcation
vs an EXPLICIT one?

INSERT ...

vs

BEGIN
INSERT ...
COMMIT

?