Database transactions follow ACID principles (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) to ensure data integrity. When a transaction is
started but not properly handled, several problems can occur:
Data Integrity Violations: If an error occurs during transaction execution and the transaction is not rolled back, partial changes
may remain in the database. This violates the atomicity principle, where either all operations in a transaction should succeed or none should.
Resource Leaks: Unhandled transactions can hold database locks and connections longer than necessary. This can lead to connection
pool exhaustion and performance degradation, especially under high load.
Inconsistent Application State: When transactions are not properly cleaned up, the application may continue with an assumption
that operations succeeded when they actually failed partially. This can lead to data corruption and unpredictable behavior.
The standard pattern in Go is to use defer tx.Rollback() immediately after successfully creating a transaction. This ensures that if
any error occurs before tx.Commit() is called, the transaction will be automatically rolled back. The Rollback() method is
safe to call even after a successful commit, making this pattern both safe and reliable.
What is the potential impact?
Improper transaction handling can lead to data corruption, resource exhaustion, and application instability. In financial or critical systems, this
could result in data loss, inconsistent records, or system downtime.
