Question

Does table constraints execute in the same transaction?

I have a transaction with Read Committed isolation level which inserts some rows in a table. The table has a constraint on it that calls a function which in turn selects some rows from the same table.

It looks like the function runs without knowing anything about the transaction and the select in the function returns rows in the table which were there prior to the transaction.

Is there a workaround or am I missing anything? Thanks.

Here are the codes for the transaction and the constraint:

insert into Treasury.DariaftPardakhtDarkhastFaktor
    (DarkhastFaktor, DariaftPardakht, Mablagh, CodeVazeiat, 
    ZamaneTakhsiseFaktor, MarkazPakhsh, ShomarehFaktor, User) 
values
    (@DarkhastFaktor, @DariaftPardakht, @Mablagh, @CodeVazeiat,
    @ZamaneTakhsiseFaktor, @MarkazPakhsh, @ShomarehFaktor, @User);


constraint expression (enforce for inserts and updates):
([Treasury].[ufnCheckDarkhastFaktorMablaghConstraint]([DarkhastFaktor])=(1))

ufnCheckDarkhastFaktorMablaghConstraint:

returns bit
as
begin
    declare @SumMablagh float
    declare @Mablagh    float

    select @SumMablagh = isnull(sum(Mablagh), 0)
    from Treasury.DariaftPardakhtDarkhastFaktor
    where DarkhastFaktor= @DarkhastFaktor

    select @Mablagh = isnull(MablaghKhalesFaktor, 0) 
    from Sales.DarkhastFaktor
    where DarkhastFaktor= @DarkhastFaktor

    if @Mablagh - @SumMablagh < -1
      return 0

    return 1
end

Answer 1

Check constraints are not enforced for delete operations, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188258.aspx

CHECK constraints are not validated
during DELETE statements. Therefore,
executing DELETE statements on tables
with certain types of check
constraints may produce unexpected
results.

Edit – to answer your question on workaround, you can use a delete trigger to roll back if your function call shows an invariant is broken.

Edit #2 – @reticent, if you are adding rows then the function called by the check constraint should in fact see the rows. If it didn’t, check constraints would be useless. Here is a simple example, you will find that the first 2 inserts succeed and the third fails as expected:

create table t1 (id int)
go
create function t1_validateSingleton () 
returns bit
as
begin
declare @ret bit
set @ret = 1
if exists (
    select count(*)
    from t1
    group by id
    having count(*) > 1
)
begin
    set @ret = 0
end
return (@ret)
end
go
alter table t1
add constraint t1_singleton
    check (dbo.t1_validateSingleton()=1)
go
insert t1 values (1)
insert t1 values (2)
insert t1 values (1)