Auto Multiple Choice - Transaction warnings/errors when accessing data

Transaction warnings/errors when accessing data

Added by Matthew Leingang about 7 years ago

I am writing some modules to read from a CSV file and tick some boxes in an AMC project manually. (Here "manually" still means automatically, but by programmatically setting the manual flag). I have a number of calls to the database that are generating either errors or warnings.

For instance, here is a subroutine I wrote for a package that extends AMC::DataModule::capture:

sub get_zoneid_nopage {
    my ($self,$sheet,$copy,$type,$id_a,$id_b,$create)=@_;
    # $self->begin_transaction('gZNP');
    my $pages = $self->get_student_pages($sheet,$copy);
    # $self->end_transaction('gZNP');
    my $result = undef;
    foreach (@$pages) {
        if (my $zone = $self->get_zoneid($sheet, $_->{'page'}, $copy, $type, $id_a, $id_b)) {
            $result = $zone;
            last; 
        }
    }
    if (!$result) {
        warn "Page not found";
    }
    # $self->end_transaction('gZNP');
    # print "get_zoneid_nopage:result: ", $result, "\n";
    return $result;
}

If I leave those transaction lines commented out, I get a warning "statement request with no transaction" from the DataModule object.
If I uncomment the lines, thus surrounding with a transaction, I get a fatal error from the DBI layer, "cannot start a transaction within a transaction".
So is there a transaction or isn't there?

Interestingly, if I leave the end_transaction line in there, I get a warning "closing transaction declared as gZNP" with two spaces after "transaction". It makes me wonder if somewhere there's a $datamodule->begin_transaction call with no argument. This might initiate a transaction called '' (empty string), which $datamodule would evaluate as false, but $datamodule->dbh would allow.

I've been digging through the source for days so I thought I'd ask before continuing to figure out why this is happening.

Replies (8)

RE: Transaction warnings/errors when accessing data - Added by Matthew Leingang about 7 years ago

Grepping source, I see $self->{'_capture'}->begin_transaction; in Zooms.pm and Manuel.pm, but I am not using any of those modules in my code.

RE: Transaction warnings/errors when accessing data - Added by Alexis Bienvenüe about 7 years ago

It makes me wonder if somewhere there's a $datamodule->begin_transaction call with no argument.

Yes, this seems to be the case.

Can you provide a minimal working code (maybe including some test SQLite databases) so that we can have a look at it and test some ideas?

RE: Transaction warnings/errors when accessing data - Added by Matthew Leingang about 7 years ago

Hi,

This isn't quite ready for prime time but I have pushed it up to github: https://github.com/nyumathclinic/AMC-Gradescope

The relevant code is in AMC/Import/Gradescope.pm. There is some mockup data in t/mc-project. I needed to scrub an actual AMC project of any personally identifying information to stay in compliance with US privacy laws.

If you run

$ perl Build.PL
$ ./Build 
$ ./Build test --test_files=t/02-amc-import-gradescope.t

you should be able to see all the warnings.

RE: Transaction warnings/errors when accessing data - Added by Alexis Bienvenüe about 7 years ago

Thanks.
You call get_student_pages somewhere. But this method asks for the module layout to be loaded. If not loaded, it loads it (with require_module). While loading the module layout, the versions mechanism initiates some transactions, which interfers with yours…
Loading AMC::Basic and calling set_debug('stderr') (using new version hg:1919154fdd29 following your remarks) helped me to see that.
One solution is to also load the layout module, along with the other ones, in the AMC::Import::load method.
Maybe all that is quite misleading: maybe DataModule::require_module should not try to load the module if not yet done, but only die with an explaination. We should think about it.

RE: Transaction warnings/errors when accessing data - Added by Matthew Leingang about 7 years ago

This is good information. But when I added

$self->{'_layout'}=$self->{'_data'}->module('layout');

to AMC::Import::load(), there doesn't seem to be any change.

RE: Transaction warnings/errors when accessing data - Added by Alexis Bienvenüe about 7 years ago

I tested this with the development version of AMC. With the code from your git repository, and the attached changes, the test 02-amc-import-gradescope.t is running without warnings. I enclosed all the SQL commands in a single transaction.

transaction.diff - Changes for AMC-Gradescope (2 kB)

RE: Transaction warnings/errors when accessing data - Added by Matthew Leingang about 7 years ago

Oh, great. I will have to bite the bullet and install the development version then.

RE: Transaction warnings/errors when accessing data - Added by Alexis Bienvenüe about 7 years ago

Note that this also seems to work with version 1.2.1.

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