Read Phenomena
ISO SQL Standard
The The ANSI/ISO standard SQL 92 defines three read phenomena; issues that can occur when many people read and write to the same rows. These are:
- Dirty read
- Non-repeatable (fuzzy) read
- Phantom read
Dirty Read
A dirty read is when you see uncommitted rows in another transaction.
There is no guarantee the other transaction will commit. Therefore, you could return data that was never saved to the database.
| Transaction 1 | Transaction 2 |
|---|---|
SELECT age FROM users WHERE id = 1; /* will read 20 */ |
|
UPDATE users SET age = 21 WHERE id = 1; /* No commit here */ |
|
| ` SELECT age FROM users WHERE id = 1; /* will read 21 */ ` | |
ROLLBACK; /* lock-based DIRTY READ */ |
Non-repeatable (fuzzy) reads
A non-repeatable read is when selecting the same row twice returns different results.
This happens when someone else updates the row between queries.
For example, after the first query in transaction 1, transaction 2 changes the shape of the row. So the second query sees the new value.
| Transaction 1 | Transaction 2 |
|---|---|
insert into bricks (colour, shape) values ('red', 'cube'); commit; |
|
select shape from bricks where colour='red'; /* shape: cube */ |
|
update bricks set shape='pyramid'; commit; |
|
select shape from bricks where colour='red'; /* shape: pyramid */ |
Phantom read
A phantom read is a special case of fuzzy read. This happens when another session inserts or deletes rows that match the where clause of your query. So repeated queries can return different rows.
| Transaction 1 | Transaction 2 |
|---|---|
insert into bricks (colour, shape) values ('red', 'cube'); commit; |
|
select shape from bricks where colour='red'; /* shape: cube */ |
|
insert into bricks (colour, shape) values ('red', 'pyramid'); commit; |
|
select shape from bricks where colour='red'; /* shape: cube, pyramid */ |