Difference between SET autocommit=1 and START TRANSACTION in mysql (Have I missed something?)

Question

I am reading up on transactions in MySQL and am not sure whether I have grasped something specific correctly, and I want to be sure I understood that correctly, so here goes

Answer 1

In InnoDB you have START TRANSACTION;, which in this engine is the officialy recommended way to do transactions, instead of SET AUTOCOMMIT = 0; (don't use SET AUTOCOMMIT = 0; for transactions in InnoDB unless it is for optimizing read only transactions). Commit with COMMIT;.

You might want to use SET AUTOCOMMIT = 0; in InnoDB for testing purposes, and not precisely for transactions.

In MyISAM you do not have START TRANSACTION;. In this engine, use SET AUTOCOMMIT = 0; for transactions. Commit with COMMIT; or SET AUTOCOMMIT = 1; (Difference explained in MyISAM example commentary below). You can do transactions this way in InnoDB too.

Source: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/glossary.html#glos_autocommit

Examples of general use transactions:

/* InnoDB */
START TRANSACTION;

INSERT INTO table_name (table_field) VALUES ('foo');
INSERT INTO table_name (table_field) VALUES ('bar');

COMMIT; /* SET AUTOCOMMIT = 1 might not set AUTOCOMMIT to its previous state */

/* MyISAM */
SET AUTOCOMMIT = 0;

INSERT INTO table_name (table_field) VALUES ('foo');
INSERT INTO table_name (table_field) VALUES ('bar');

SET AUTOCOMMIT = 1; /* COMMIT statement instead would not restore AUTOCOMMIT to 1 */