Introduction to Autonomous Transactions (Or If Obama And Merkel Had A Lovechild...)

I don't know if you've been paying attention, but you may have noticed that there's a bit of a recession going on at the moment. Stock prices are crashing around the globe, and I'm pretty sure that the Euro is now worth less than Monopoly money. It's very much like the Great Depression of the 1930s all over again - except that, this time, the bankers don't have the decency to throw themselves out of windows.

The solution, David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Barack Obama assure us, is for everyone to go out and spend more money. That'll kickstart our economies, they assure us. More transactions. A lot more.

So they'll probably thank me for this article that I wrote over at All Things Oracle about autonomous transactions. Have a read; you may thank me too.

AUTONOMOUS TRANSACTIONS IN ORACLE

Autonomous transactions are a bit like that dark part of the forest, beyond the rickety bridge, where the shadows are shaped like witches and bats swarm soundlessly from the trees. We all know it’s there, but the wise are in no hurry to visit.

Here, however, is a definition: an autonomous transaction is a completely independent transaction that is started by temporarily suspending the parent/calling transaction, which is then resumed after the independent transaction is completed. Or, if you prefer a real-world analogy: an autonomous transaction is a little like getting married, but having an affair on the side.

Morality isn’t the reason autonomous transactions are frowned upon; they possess the potential to get out of hand. Autonomous transactions are completely self-contained transactions that commit independently, and so to start one is to juggle two transactions...

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