doc/src/sgml/xact.sgml

<!-- doc/src/sgml/xact.sgml -->

<chapter id="transactions">

 <title>Transaction Processing</title>

 <para>
  This chapter provides an overview of the internals of
  <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>'s transaction management system.
  The word transaction is often abbreviated as <firstterm>xact</firstterm>.
 </para>

 <sect1 id="transaction-id">

  <title>Transactions and Identifiers</title>

  <para>
   Transactions can be created explicitly using <command>BEGIN</command>
   or <command>START TRANSACTION</command> and ended using
   <command>COMMIT</command> or <command>ROLLBACK</command>.  SQL
   statements outside of explicit transactions automatically use
   single-statement transactions.
  </para>

  <para>
   Every transaction is identified by a unique
   <literal>VirtualTransactionId</literal> (also called
   <literal>virtualXID</literal> or <literal>vxid</literal>), which
   is comprised of a backend ID (or <literal>backendID</literal>)
   and a sequentially-assigned number local to each backend, known as
   <literal>localXID</literal>.  For example, the virtual transaction
   ID <literal>4/12532</literal> has a <literal>backendID</literal>
   of <literal>4</literal> and a <literal>localXID</literal> of
   <literal>12532</literal>.
  </para>

  <para>
   Non-virtual <literal>TransactionId</literal>s (or <type>xid</type>),
   e.g., <literal>278394</literal>, are assigned sequentially to
   transactions from a global counter used by all databases within
   the <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> cluster.  This assignment
   happens when a transaction first writes to the database. This means
   lower-numbered xids started writing before higher-numbered xids.
   Note that the order in which transactions perform their first database
   write might be different from the order in which the transactions
   started, particularly if the transaction started with statements that
   only performed database reads.
  </para>

  <para>
   The internal transaction ID type <type>xid</type> is 32 bits wide
   and <link linkend="vacuum-for-wraparound">wraps around</link> every
   4 billion transactions. A 32-bit epoch is incremented during each
   wraparound. There is also a 64-bit type <type>xid8</type> which
   includes this epoch and therefore does not wrap around during the
   life of an installation;  it can be converted to xid by casting.
   The functions in <xref linkend="functions-pg-snapshot"/>
   return <type>xid8</type> values.  Xids are used as the
   basis for <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>'s <link
   linkend="mvcc">MVCC</link> concurrency mechanism and streaming
   replication.
  </para>

  <para>
   When a top-level transaction with a (non-virtual) xid commits,
   it is marked as committed in the <filename>pg_xact</filename>
   directory. Additional information is recorded in the
   <filename>pg_commit_ts</filename> directory if <xref
   linkend="guc-track-commit-timestamp"/> is enabled.
  </para>

  <para>
   In addition to <literal>vxid</literal> and <type>xid</type>,
   prepared transactions are also assigned Global Transaction
   Identifiers (<acronym>GID</acronym>). GIDs are string literals up
   to 200 bytes long, which must be unique amongst other currently
   prepared transactions.  The mapping of GID to xid is shown in <link
   linkend="view-pg-prepared-xacts"><structname>pg_prepared_xacts</structname></link>.
  </para>
 </sect1>

 <sect1 id="xact-locking">

  <title>Transactions and Locking</title>

  <para>
   The transaction IDs of currently executing transactions are shown in
   <link linkend="view-pg-locks"><structname>pg_locks</structname></link>
   in columns <structfield>virtualxid</structfield> and
   <structfield>transactionid</structfield>.  Read-only transactions
   will have <structfield>virtualxid</structfield>s but NULL
   <structfield>transactionid</structfield>s, while both columns will be
   set in read-write transactions.
  </para>

  <para>
   Some lock types wait on <structfield>virtualxid</structfield>,
   while other types wait on <structfield>transactionid</structfield>.
   Row-level read and write locks are recorded directly in the locked
   rows and can be inspected using the <xref linkend="pgrowlocks"/>
   extension.  Row-level read locks might also require the assignment
   of multixact IDs (<literal>mxid</literal>;  see <xref
   linkend="vacuum-for-multixact-wraparound"/>).
  </para>
 </sect1>

 <sect1 id="subxacts">

  <title>Subtransactions</title>

  <para>
   Subtransactions are started inside transactions, allowing large
   transactions to be broken into smaller units.  Subtransactions can
   commit or abort without affecting their parent transactions, allowing
   parent transactions to continue. This allows errors to be handled
   more easily, which is a common application development pattern.
   The word subtransaction is often abbreviated as
   <firstterm>subxact</firstterm>.
  </para>

  <para>
   Subtransactions can be started explicitly using the
   <command>SAVEPOINT</command> command, but can also be started in
   other ways, such as PL/pgSQL's <command>EXCEPTION</command> clause.
   PL/Python and PL/Tcl also support explicit subtransactions.
   Subtransactions can also be started from other subtransactions.
   The top-level transaction and its child subtransactions form a
   hierarchy or tree, which is why we refer to the main transaction as
   the top-level transaction.
  </para>

  <para>
   If a subtransaction is assigned a non-virtual transaction ID,
   its transaction ID is referred to as a <quote>subxid</quote>.
   Read-only subtransactions are not assigned subxids, but once they
   attempt to write, they will be assigned one. This also causes all of
   a subxid's parents, up to and including the top-level transaction,
   to be assigned non-virtual transaction ids.  We ensure that a parent
   xid is always lower than any of its child subxids.
  </para>

  <para>
   The immediate parent xid of each subxid is recorded in the
   <filename>pg_subtrans</filename> directory. No entry is made for
   top-level xids since they do not have a parent, nor is an entry made
   for read-only subtransactions.
  </para>

  <para>
   When a subtransaction commits, all of its committed child
   subtransactions with subxids will also be considered subcommitted
   in that transaction.  When a subtransaction aborts, all of its child
   subtransactions will also be considered aborted.
  </para>

  <para>
   When a top-level transaction with an xid commits, all of its
   subcommitted child subtransactions are also persistently recorded
   as committed in the <filename>pg_xact</filename> subdirectory.  If the
   top-level transaction aborts, all its subtransactions are also aborted,
   even if they were subcommitted.
  </para>

  <para>
   The more subtransactions each transaction keeps open (not
   rolled back or released), the greater the transaction management
   overhead. Up to 64 open subxids are cached in shared memory for
   each backend; after that point, the storage I/O overhead increases
   significantly due to additional lookups of subxid entries in
   <filename>pg_subtrans</filename>.
  </para>
 </sect1>

 <sect1 id="two-phase">

  <title>Two-Phase Transactions</title>

  <para>
   <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> supports a two-phase commit (2PC)
   protocol that allows multiple distributed systems to work together
   in a transactional manner.  The commands are <command>PREPARE
   TRANSACTION</command>, <command>COMMIT PREPARED</command> and
   <command>ROLLBACK PREPARED</command>.  Two-phase transactions
   are intended for use by external transaction management systems.
   <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> follows the features and model
   proposed by the X/Open XA standard, but does not implement some less
   often used aspects.
  </para>

  <para>
   When the user executes <command>PREPARE TRANSACTION</command>, the
   only possible next commands are <command>COMMIT PREPARED</command>
   or <command>ROLLBACK PREPARED</command>. In general, this prepared
   state is intended to be of very short duration, but external
   availability issues might mean transactions stay in this state
   for an extended interval. Short-lived prepared
   transactions are stored only in shared memory and WAL.
   Transactions that span checkpoints are recorded in the
   <filename>pg_twophase</filename> directory.  Transactions
   that are currently prepared can be inspected using <link
   linkend="view-pg-prepared-xacts"><structname>pg_prepared_xacts</structname></link>.
  </para>
 </sect1>

</chapter>