Press "Enter" to skip to content

Category: Myth-Busting

Nested Transactions Aren’t

Friends don’t let friends nest transactions:

Before getting into the details, I need to make one thing clear. Nested transactions are a lie. They do not exist in SQL Server.

This is part 1 of a three-part series by Gail Shaw.  Read the whole thing.  Also read Paul Randal:

Nested transactions do not actually behave the way the syntax would have you believe. I have no idea why they were coded this way in SQL Server – all I can think of is someone from the dim and distant past is continually thumbing their nose at the SQL Server community and going “ha – fooled you!!”.

Nested transactions are somebody’s attempt at trolling.  They succeeded.

Comments closed

Clustered Indexes Do Not Guarantee Physical Order

Gail Shaw on how clustered indexes do not guarantee physical order:

Do indexes (clustered or non-clustered) define the physical storage order of the rows?

No, absolutely not.

What indexes do is provide a logical ordering, a collection of pointers, that allow the storage engine to retrieve data from an index ordered by the index key, but that’s logical ordering, it specified nothing regarding the physical ordering.

Read the whole thing.

Comments closed