SQL Anywhere® Server - Programming
  Using SQL in Applications
    Controlling transactions in applications
Setting autocommit or manual commit mode

Database programming interfaces can operate in either manual commit mode or autocommit mode.

• Manual commit mode    Operations are committed only when your application carries out an explicit commit operation or when the database server carries out an automatic commit, for example when executing an ALTER TABLE statement or other data definition statement. Manual commit mode is also sometimes called chained mode.

  To use transactions in your application, including nested transactions and savepoints, you must operate in manual commit mode.

• Autocommit mode    Each statement is treated as a separate transaction. Autocommit mode is equivalent to appending a COMMIT statement to the end of each of your commands. Autocommit mode is also sometimes called unchained mode.

Autocommit mode can affect the performance and behavior of your application. Do not use autocommit if your application requires transactional integrity.

For information on autocommit impact on performance, see Turn off autocommit mode.

Controlling autocommit behavior
Autocommit implementation details