Django select_for_update cannot be used outside of a transaction

Question

I was using Django 1.5.1 and upgraded to Django 1.6.6.

In Django 1.5.1 I was using select for update to guarantee atomic execution.

job_qs = Job.objects.select_for_update().filter(pk=job.id)
for job in job_qs:

Unfortunately this now throws an error:

  File "/srv/venvs/django-picdoc/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 96, in __iter__
    self._fetch_all()

  File "/srv/venvs/django-picdoc/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 857, in _fetch_all
    self._result_cache = list(self.iterator())

  File "/srv/venvs/django-picdoc/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/query.py", line 220, in iterator
    for row in compiler.results_iter():

  File "/srv/venvs/django-picdoc/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/compiler.py", line 713, in results_iter
    for rows in self.execute_sql(MULTI):

  File "/srv/venvs/django-picdoc/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/compiler.py", line 776, in execute_sql
    sql, params = self.as_sql()

  File "/srv/venvs/django-picdoc/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/models/sql/compiler.py", line 147, in as_sql
    raise TransactionManagementError("select_for_update cannot be used outside of a transaction.")

TransactionManagementError: select_for_update cannot be used outside of a transaction.

What are some of the solutions for solving this?

Answer 1

The answer is in the error, wrap the query in a transaction

Django's documentation is located here: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/db/transactions/#django.db.transaction.atomic

One approach is:

from django.db import transaction

def some_method():    
   with transaction.atomic():
      job_qs = Job.objects.select_for_update().filter(pk=job.id)
      for job in job_qs: