I think we could allow users to set the transaction isolation level to READ UNCOMMITTED or REPEATABLE READ and internally behave like READ COMMITTED or SERIALIZABLE, respectively. The SQL standard seems to allow this:
[speaking about SET TRANSACTION] 5) The isolation level of TXN is set to an implementation-defined isolation level that will not exhibit any of the phenomena that the explicit or implicit <level of isolation> would not exhibit, as specified in Table 10, "SQL-transaction isolation levels and the three phenomena". This says that the SQL implementation can always isolate more than the user requested, just not less. If we did this, it would make the SQL interface more complete at little cost. Comments? -- Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])