Transaction, isolation level on database

A transaction is a logical unit of work. A minimum unit is defined by work process, not a system or a technical thing.

2020-01-26

Transaction, Isolation, Lock, Concurrency

A transaction is a logical unit of work. A minimum unit is defined by work process, not a system or a technical thing. These transactions have an ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) characteristic. Isolation is to prevent other transactions from approaching while data are being processed by some transactions. DBMS provides a "Lock" function to preserve data that can be distorted by parallel transactions as a concurrency issue. Lock simply means that only one user or session can be modified for a particular operator. You have to strike the balance between consistency and performance.

Types of Lock

Below are the contents about 'Shared & Exclusive Lock' on mysql manual

InnoDB implements standard row-level locking where there are two types of locks, shared (S) locks and exclusive (X) locks.

A shared (S) lock permits the transaction that holds the lock to read a row.

An exclusive (X) lock permits the transaction that holds the lock to update or delete a row.

If transaction T1 holds a shared (S) lock on row r, then requests from some distinct transaction T2 for a lock on row r are handled as follows:

A request by T2 for an S lock can be granted immediately. As a result, both T1 and T2 hold an S lock on r.

A request by T2 for an X lock cannot be granted immediately.

If a transaction T1 holds an exclusive (X) lock on row r, a request from some distinct transaction T2 for a lock of either type on r cannot be granted immediately. Instead, transaction T2 has to wait for transaction T1 to release its lock on row r.

In summary, An exclusive lock does not permit other two types of transactions lock And it even waits for other shared transaction lock before acquiring locks. And shared lock can be permitted among the shared lock.

There are various types of lock, record Locks on index, gap lock for index table management and so on.

Isolation levels

Below are the contents about 'Isolation level' on mysql manual

You can enforce a high degree of consistency with the default REPEATABLE READ level, for operations on crucial data where ACID compliance is important. Or you can relax the consistency rules with READ COMMITTED or even READ UNCOMMITTED, in situations such as bulk reporting where precise consistency and repeatable results are less important than minimizing the amount of overhead for locking. SERIALIZABLE enforces even stricter rules than REPEATABLE READ, and is used mainly in specialized situations, such as with XA transactions and for troubleshooting issues with concurrency and deadlocks.

The following list describes how MySQL supports the different transaction levels. The list goes from the most commonly used level to the least used.
REPEATABLE READ

This is the default isolation level for InnoDB. Consistent reads within the same transaction read the snapshot established by the first read. This means that if you issue several plain (nonlocking) SELECT statements within the same transaction, these SELECT statements are consistent also with respect to each other. See Section 15.7.2.3, “Consistent Nonlocking Reads”.

For locking reads (SELECT with FOR UPDATE or FOR SHARE), UPDATE, and DELETE statements, locking depends on whether the statement uses a unique index with a unique search condition, or a range-type search condition.

For a unique index with a unique search condition, InnoDB locks only the index record found, not the gap before it.

For other search conditions, InnoDB locks the index range scanned, using gap locks or next-key locks to block insertions by other sessions into the gaps covered by the range. For information about gap locks and next-key locks, see Section 15.7.1, “InnoDB Locking”.
READ COMMITTED

Each consistent read, even within the same transaction, sets and reads its own fresh snapshot. For information about consistent reads, see Section 15.7.2.3, “Consistent Nonlocking Reads”.

For locking reads (SELECT with FOR UPDATE or FOR SHARE), UPDATE statements, and DELETE statements, InnoDB locks only index records, not the gaps before them, and thus permits the free insertion of new records next to locked records. Gap locking is only used for foreign-key constraint checking and duplicate-key checking.

Because gap locking is disabled, phantom problems may occur, as other sessions can insert new rows into the gaps. For information about phantoms, see Section 15.7.4, “Phantom Rows”.

Only row-based binary logging is supported with the READ COMMITTED isolation level. If you use READ COMMITTED with binlog_format=MIXED, the server automatically uses row-based logging.

Using READ COMMITTED has additional effects:

For UPDATE or DELETE statements, InnoDB holds locks only for rows that it updates or deletes. Record locks for nonmatching rows are released after MySQL has evaluated the WHERE condition. This greatly reduces the probability of deadlocks, but they can still happen.

For UPDATE statements, if a row is already locked, InnoDB performs a “semi-consistent” read, returning the latest committed version to MySQL so that MySQL can determine whether the row matches the WHERE condition of the UPDATE. If the row matches (must be updated), MySQL reads the row again and this time InnoDB either locks it or waits for a lock on it.

Consider the following example, beginning with this table:
CREATE TABLE t (a INT NOT NULL, b INT) ENGINE = InnoDB;
INSERT INTO t VALUES (1,2),(2,3),(3,2),(4,3),(5,2);
COMMIT;
In this case, the table has no indexes, so searches and index scans use the hidden clustered index for record locking (see Section 15.6.2.1, “Clustered and Secondary Indexes”) rather than indexed columns.

Suppose that one session performs an UPDATE using these statements:
# Session A
START TRANSACTION;
UPDATE t SET b = 5 WHERE b = 3;
Suppose also that a second session performs an UPDATE by executing these statements following those of the first session:
# Session B
UPDATE t SET b = 4 WHERE b = 2;
As InnoDB executes each UPDATE, it first acquires an exclusive lock for each row, and then determines whether to modify it. If InnoDB does not modify the row, it releases the lock. Otherwise, InnoDB retains the lock until the end of the transaction. This affects transaction processing as follows.

When using the default REPEATABLE READ isolation level, the first UPDATE acquires an x-lock on each row that it reads and does not release any of them:
x-lock(1,2); retain x-lock
x-lock(2,3); update(2,3) to (2,5); retain x-lock
x-lock(3,2); retain x-lock
x-lock(4,3); update(4,3) to (4,5); retain x-lock
x-lock(5,2); retain x-lock
The second UPDATE blocks as soon as it tries to acquire any locks (because first update has retained locks on all rows), and does not proceed until the first UPDATE commits or rolls back:
x-lock(1,2); block and wait for first UPDATE to commit or roll back
If READ COMMITTED is used instead, the first UPDATE acquires an x-lock on each row that it reads and releases those for rows that it does not modify:
x-lock(1,2); unlock(1,2)
x-lock(2,3); update(2,3) to (2,5); retain x-lock
x-lock(3,2); unlock(3,2)
x-lock(4,3); update(4,3) to (4,5); retain x-lock
x-lock(5,2); unlock(5,2)
For the second UPDATE, InnoDB does a “semi-consistent” read, returning the latest committed version of each row that it reads to MySQL so that MySQL can determine whether the row matches the WHERE condition of the UPDATE:
x-lock(1,2); update(1,2) to (1,4); retain x-lock
x-lock(2,3); unlock(2,3)
x-lock(3,2); update(3,2) to (3,4); retain x-lock
x-lock(4,3); unlock(4,3)
x-lock(5,2); update(5,2) to (5,4); retain x-lock
However, if the WHERE condition includes an indexed column, and InnoDB uses the index, only the indexed column is considered when taking and retaining record locks. In the following example, the first UPDATE takes and retains an x-lock on each row where b = 2. The second UPDATE blocks when it tries to acquire x-locks on the same records, as it also uses the index defined on column b.
CREATE TABLE t (a INT NOT NULL, b INT, c INT, INDEX (b)) ENGINE = InnoDB;
INSERT INTO t VALUES (1,2,3),(2,2,4);
COMMIT;

# Session A
START TRANSACTION;
UPDATE t SET b = 3 WHERE b = 2 AND c = 3;

# Session B
UPDATE t SET b = 4 WHERE b = 2 AND c = 4;
The effects of using the READ COMMITTED isolation level are the same as enabling the deprecated innodb_locks_unsafe_for_binlog configuration option, with these exceptions:

Enabling innodb_locks_unsafe_for_binlog is a global setting and affects all sessions, whereas the isolation level can be set globally for all sessions, or individually per session.

innodb_locks_unsafe_for_binlog can be set only at server startup, whereas the isolation level can be set at startup or changed at runtime.

READ COMMITTED therefore offers finer and more flexible control than innodb_locks_unsafe_for_binlog.
READ UNCOMMITTED

SELECT statements are performed in a nonlocking fashion, but a possible earlier version of a row might be used. Thus, using this isolation level, such reads are not consistent. This is also called a dirty read. Otherwise, this isolation level works like READ COMMITTED.

SERIALIZABLE

This level is like REPEATABLE READ, but InnoDB implicitly converts all plain SELECT statements to SELECT ... FOR SHARE if autocommit is disabled. If autocommit is enabled, the SELECT is its own transaction. It therefore is known to be read only and can be serialized if performed as a consistent (nonlocking) read and need not block for other transactions. (To force a plain SELECT to block if other transactions have modified the selected rows, disable autocommit.)

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