NAME

       START_TRANSACTION - start a transaction block

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

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 SET
       TRANSACTION was executed. This is the same as the BEGIN command.

PARAMETERS

       Refer to SET TRANSACTION (SET_TRANSACTION(7)) for information on the meaning of the
       parameters to this statement.

COMPATIBILITY

       In the standard, it is not necessary to issue START TRANSACTION 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 START TRANSACTION (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)).

SEE ALSO

       BEGIN(7), COMMIT(7), ROLLBACK(7), SAVEPOINT(7), SET TRANSACTION (SET_TRANSACTION(7))