It is how oracle audits (or you), commit a record in the audit table without preventing rollback of the transaction. If you don't understand precisely what is happening, it probably should be avoided. - Thomas Kyte, Expert oracle database architecture. Tom has a section that discusses the issue, and he gives an example of how important it is to think out the logic. His example of course revolved around rudimentary auditing... and since oracle does a good job of that already, the example is academic only. Joel Patterson Database Administrator joel.patterson@xxxxxxxxxxx x72546 904 727-2546 ________________________________ From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rick Ricky Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 11:56 AM To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: uses of autonomous transactions has anyone found a use for this other than for logging? 1. doing stuff 2. log what i am doing. commit it and don't want to commit do stuff 3. continue doing stuff anyone use it for anything else?