How to use database transactions

Problem

Solution

The database object has a method transaction which starts a new transaction and returns the transaction object. The transaction object can be used to commit or rollback that transaction.

import web

db = web.database(dbn="postgres", db="webpy", user="foo", pw="")
t = db.transaction()
try:
    db.insert('person', name='foo')
    db.insert('person', name='bar')
except:
    t.rollback()
    raise
else:
    t.commit()

With python 2.5+, transaction can be used as with statement also.

from __future__ import with_statement

db = web.databse(dbn="postgres", db="webpy", user="foo", pw="")

with db.transaction():
    db.insert('person', name='foo')
    db.insert('person', name='bar')

It is also possible to have nested transactions.

def post(title, body, tags):
    t = db.transaction()
    try:
        post_id = db.insert('post', title=title, body=body)
        add_tags(post_id, tags)
    except:
        t.rollback()
    else:
        t.commit()

def add_tags(post_id, tags):
    t = db.transaction()
    try:
        for tag in tags:
            db.insert('tag', post_id=post_id, tag=tag)
    except:
        t.rollback()
    else:
        t.commit()

Nested transactions are ignored for sqlite as they are not supported.