To: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
From: Walter Hurry <walterhurry@lavabit.com>
Subject: Re: transaction error handling
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:49:35 +0000 (UTC)
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On Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:57:24 -0800, Kasia Tuszynska wrote:

> Hi Everybody,
> 
> This is an architectural question.
> I am testing on Postgres 9.0.2 on windows and linux(suse, rhel, ubuntu)
> 
> I want to make sure that I have the correct understanding of the
> Postgres architecture and would like to enquire if there are any plans
> to change it.
> 
> Comparing Oracle and Postgres from the perspective of error handling on
> the transaction level I observed the following:
> 
> Oracle:
> Begin transaction Insert - no error Implicit savepoint Insert - error
> raised Implicit rollback to the savepoint, no transaction loss, error
> raised on the insert statement that errored out.
> End transaction, implicit commit, with the single error free insert.
> 
> Postgres:
> Begin transaction Insert - no error Insert - error raised Transaction
> loss = no implicit rollback to the single error free insert.
> 
> Is this a correct interpretation of the Postgres transaction error
> handling?
> If so, are there any changes being considered, or perhaps already
> implemented?

I suspect you may be barking up the wrong tree. Comparing default 
behaviour of PSQL to SQL*Plus is not the same thing as comparing 
PostgreSQL to Oracle.