Transactions | SurrealDB

Transactions group multiple operations so they either all succeed or all fail together. The Kotlin SDK exposes transactions as extension functions on a session: a block form that commits or cancels automatically, and an explicit form for manual control.

Note

Transactions require a stateful connection and are only available over the WebSocket transport. Check support with client.supports(SurrealFeature.Transactions).

API references

Method	Description
`session.transaction { }`	Runs a block, committing or cancelling automatically
`session.beginTransaction()`	Begins a transaction explicitly
`tx.commit()`	Commits the transaction
`tx.cancel()`	Cancels the transaction

Block form

The transaction { } builder runs your block against a SurrealTransaction, commits it if the block returns normally, and cancels it if the block throws. The transaction is itself a queryable, so all the CRUD builders are available scoped to it.

import com.surrealdb.kotlin.query.RecordId
import com.surrealdb.kotlin.transaction
import kotlinx.serialization.json.buildJsonObject
import kotlinx.serialization.json.put

client.transaction {
    create(RecordId("person", "tx"))
        .content(buildJsonObject { put("name", "Tx") })
        .await()

    update(RecordId("counter", "1"))
        .content(buildJsonObject { put("hits", 2) })
        .await()
}

Explicit form

For finer control, begin a transaction with .beginTransaction() and commit or cancel it yourself.

import com.surrealdb.kotlin.query.Table
import com.surrealdb.kotlin.beginTransaction
import kotlinx.serialization.json.buildJsonObject
import kotlinx.serialization.json.put

val tx = client.beginTransaction()
try {
    tx.create(Table("person"))
        .content(buildJsonObject { put("name", "Ada") })
        .await()
    tx.commit()
} catch (cause: Throwable) {
    tx.cancel()
    throw cause
}

Learn more

Transaction reference for the full API
Multiple sessions — transactions run within a session
SurrealQL transactions for transaction semantics