Database transactions

In android it is highly important to use transactions when working with databases.

First, in android database operations - especially writing - are very slow. Batching them into transactions will make them much faster.

Second, the database remains consistent under any circumstances. The database system makes sure to all the operations in a transaction take effect, or on error, rollback all of them.

If you are used to other platforms like PHP+MySQL where the code usually runs on a powerful server, witch is not likely to stop execution "unexpectedly", you can be surprised how much it affects the performance in android.
The android system can kill apps/threads/activities and so interrupt database usage, the battery can discharge or can be removed etc.

The implementation is very simple, using 3 methods in the SQLiteDatabase class:

beginTransaction();
setTransactionSuccessful();
endTransaction();

When calling endTransaction() all operations done since beginTransaction() are committed if endTransaction() have been called, or are rolled back otherwise.

An example how the main flow of a database method can look: