Disable Default Transaction

GORM perform write (create/update/delete) operations run inside a transaction to ensure data consistency, you can disable it during initialization if it is not required, you will gain about 30%+ performance improvement after that

// Globally disable
db, err := gorm.Open(sqlite.Open("gorm.db"), &gorm.Config{
  SkipDefaultTransaction: true,
})
// Continuous session mode
tx := db.Session(&Session{SkipDefaultTransaction: true})
tx.First(&user, 1)
tx.Find(&users)
tx.Model(&user).Update("Age", 18)

Transaction

To perform a set of operations within a transaction, the general flow is as below.

db.Transaction(func(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  // do some database operations in the transaction (use 'tx' from this point, not 'db')
  if err := tx.Create(&Animal{Name: "Giraffe"}).Error; err != nil {
    // return any error will rollback
    return err
  }
  if err := tx.Create(&Animal{Name: "Lion"}).Error; err != nil {
    return err
  }
  // return nil will commit the whole transaction
  return nil
})

Nested Transactions

GORM supports nested transactions, you can rollback a subset of operations performed within the scope of a larger transaction, for example:

db.Transaction(func(tx *gorm.DB) error {
  tx.Create(&user1)
  tx.Transaction(func(tx2 *gorm.DB) error {
    tx2.Create(&user2)
    return errors.New("rollback user2") // Rollback user2
  })
  tx.Transaction(func(tx2 *gorm.DB) error {
    tx2.Create(&user3)
    return nil
  })
  return nil
})
// Commit user1, user3

Control the transaction manually

Gorm supports calling transaction control functions (commit / rollback) directly, for example:

// begin a transaction
tx := db.Begin()
// do some database operations in the transaction (use 'tx' from this point, not 'db')
tx.Create(...)
// ...
// rollback the transaction in case of error
tx.Rollback()
// Or commit the transaction
tx.Commit()

A Specific Example

func CreateAnimals(db *gorm.DB) error {
  // Note the use of tx as the database handle once you are within a transaction
  tx := db.Begin()
  defer func() {
    if r := recover(); r != nil {
      tx.Rollback()
    }
  }()
  if err := tx.Error; err != nil {
    return err
  }
  if err := tx.Create(&Animal{Name: "Giraffe"}).Error; err != nil {
     tx.Rollback()
     return err
  }
  if err := tx.Create(&Animal{Name: "Lion"}).Error; err != nil {
     tx.Rollback()
     return err
  }
  return tx.Commit().Error
}

SavePoint, RollbackTo

GORM provides SavePoint, RollbackTo to save points and roll back to a savepoint, for example:

tx := db.Begin()
tx.Create(&user1)
tx.SavePoint("sp1")
tx.Create(&user2)
tx.RollbackTo("sp1") // Rollback user2
tx.Commit() // Commit user1