SAVEPOINTidentifierROLLBACK [WORK] TO [SAVEPOINT]identifierRELEASE SAVEPOINTidentifier
InnoDB and Falcon support the SQL statements
SAVEPOINT, ROLLBACK TO
SAVEPOINT, RELEASE SAVEPOINT and the
optional WORK keyword for
ROLLBACK.
The SAVEPOINT statement sets a named
transaction savepoint with a name of
identifier. If the current transaction
has a savepoint with the same name, the old savepoint is deleted
and a new one is set.
The ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT statement rolls back
a transaction to the named savepoint. Modifications that the
current transaction made to rows after the savepoint was set are
undone in the rollback, but InnoDB does
not release the row locks that were stored in
memory after the savepoint. (Note that for a new inserted row, the
lock information is carried by the transaction ID stored in the
row; the lock is not separately stored in memory. In this case,
the row lock is released in the undo.) Savepoints that were set at
a later time than the named savepoint are deleted.
If the ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT statement returns
the following error, it means that no savepoint with the specified
name exists:
ERROR 1181: Got error 153 during ROLLBACK
The RELEASE SAVEPOINT statement removes the
named savepoint from the set of savepoints of the current
transaction. No commit or rollback occurs. It is an error if the
savepoint does not exist.
All savepoints of the current transaction are deleted if you
execute a COMMIT, or a
ROLLBACK that does not name a savepoint.
A new savepoint level is created when a stored function is invoked or a trigger is activated. The savepoints on previous levels become unavailable and thus do not conflict with savepoints on the new level. When the function or trigger terminates, any savepoints it created are released and the previous savepoint level is restored.

User Comments
Savepoints apply only to an already started transaction. They do not start a transaction themselves. So if you're getting 'SAVEPOINT foobar does not exist' errors, make sure you've actually started a transaction _and_ made the savepoint.
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