MySQL AUTOCOMMIT status while using BEGIN and START TRANSACTION

Question

I need to use a transaction in my project on MySQL. But I'm not sure if I have to use mysql_query("SET AUTOCOMMIT=0"); or not.
I know I have 2 options:

1. BEGIN
2. START TRANSACTION

Also I have heard that one of the both items does not need using AUTOCOMMIT = 0.
Please help me to know when I have to use AUTOCOMMIT = 0 actually, With BEGIN or with START TRANSACTION?

Thank you.

Answer 1

As explained in the manual:

By default, MySQL runs with autocommit mode enabled. This means that as soon as you execute a statement that updates (modifies) a table, MySQL stores the update on disk to make it permanent. The change cannot be rolled back.

To disable autocommit mode implicitly for a single series of statements, use the START TRANSACTION statement:

START TRANSACTION;
SELECT @A:=SUM(salary) FROM table1 WHERE type=1;
UPDATE table2 SET summary=@A WHERE type=1;
COMMIT;

With START TRANSACTION, autocommit remains disabled until you end the transaction with COMMIT or ROLLBACK. The autocommit mode then reverts to its previous state.

The manual goes on to say:

To disable autocommit mode explicitly, use the following statement:

SET autocommit=0;

After disabling autocommit mode by setting the autocommit variable to zero, changes to transaction-safe tables (such as those for InnoDB or NDBCLUSTER) are not made permanent immediately. You must use COMMIT to store your changes to disk or ROLLBACK to ignore the changes.

autocommit is a session variable and must be set for each session. To disable autocommit mode for each new connection, see the description of the autocommit system variable at Section 5.1.3, “Server System Variables”.

BEGIN and BEGIN WORK are supported as aliases of START TRANSACTION for initiating a transaction. START TRANSACTION is standard SQL syntax and is the recommended way to start an ad-hoc transaction.