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Isolation level

The isolation level determines how data is locked (isolated), from other processes while it is being accessed.

DB2 supports the following isolation levels:

Repeatable read
All rows retrieved by an application are locked within a unit of work. As a result, a query issued twice within the same unit of work while a cursor is opened will provide the same result each time.

Read stability
A qualifying row that is read during a unit of work is not changed by other application processes until the unit of work completes, and any row changed by another process is not read until the change is committed by that process. As a result, a query issued twice within the same unit of work may return additional "phantom" rows.

Cursor stability
A row accessed by a transaction is locked while the cursor is positioned on that row. (If a row's data is changed, the lock is held until the change is committed.) As a result, a query issued twice within the same unit of work might not produce the same results.

Uncommitted read
An application can access the uncommitted changes of other transactions. It is most often used on read-only tables for select statements.

For more information, see the section on concurrency in the Administration Guide.

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