Executing External Transactions

The transaction manager executes external transactions.

The transaction manager:

Initiates a begin transaction.
Initiates an attach transaction.

Note: The transaction manager might perform steps 1 and 2 together.
The application executes DML commands.
Initiates a detach transaction.
Repeat steps 2 through 4, if necessary.
Initiates a prepare transaction, if the transaction is not rolled back.
Initiates a commit transaction or a rollback transaction.

Executing step 3 can cause the distributed transaction to roll back.

Because it is cumbersome to check the global variable before issuing every command, many user applications do not check it at all. Before version 15.0.3, if the distributed transaction rolled back, SAP ASE allowed the user application to continue issuing SQL commands. These commands executed outside the distributed transaction as independent transactions. A SQL command that should have been included in a rollback transaction could be committed independently of that transaction, causing transactionally inconsistent data.

In versions 15.0.3 and later, SAP ASE automatically prevents SQL commands that are intended to execute inside a distributed transaction from executing outside it. The user application no longer has to check the global variable before every command; when a transaction is implicitly aborted, an error message (3953) appears, saying “Cannot execute the command because the external transaction has been rolled back.” This message disappears when a detach transaction command is issued.

To suppress the 3953 error messages and let SAP ASE restore the former behavior, executing SQL commands even if the DTM transaction is not active, start SAP ASE using trace flag -T3955.