---
title: Transactions in Rest APIs
description: DreamFactory supports nested inserts/updates, as well as database transactions. This ensures your database remains consistent when unexpected errors occur.
---

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AI Data Models

[AIOpenAI](https://www.dreamfactory.com/use-cases/openai) [GGoogle Gemini](https://www.dreamfactory.com/use-cases/google-gemini) [CAnthropic Claude](https://www.dreamfactory.com/use-cases/anthropic-claude-landing) [LMeta Llama](https://www.dreamfactory.com/use-cases/meta-llama) [MMistral AI](https://www.dreamfactory.com/use-cases/mistral) [CoCohere](https://www.dreamfactory.com/use-cases/cohere)

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[Energy Modernization](https://www.dreamfactory.com/case-studies/energy-snowflake-modernization) [Government Modernization](https://www.dreamfactory.com/case-studies/government-mainframe-oracle-modernization) [Government Business Intelligence](https://www.dreamfactory.com/case-studies/government-sql-server-bi-analyst-queries) [Manufacturing Modernization](https://www.dreamfactory.com/case-studies/steel-manufacturing-sap-erp-modernization) [Financial Services Investor Portal](https://www.dreamfactory.com/case-studies/financial-services-sql-server-investor-portal) [Non-Profit Partner Data Sharing](https://www.dreamfactory.com/case-studies/non-profit-sql-server-partner-data-sharing) [Professional Services Exec Dashboards](https://www.dreamfactory.com/case-studies/professional-services-erp-dashboards) [Education HR and External Data Sharing](https://www.dreamfactory.com/case-studies/education-student-hr-sql-server-mysql-external-data-sharing)

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#### [Healthcare HIPAA-grade APIs across EHR, claims, and labs.](https://www.dreamfactory.com/use-cases/healthcare)

#### [Financial Services Portfolios, partners, and portals on one layer.](https://www.dreamfactory.com/use-cases/financial-services)

#### [Government Modernize mainframes without re-platforming.](https://www.dreamfactory.com/use-cases/government)

#### [Manufacturing SAP, MES, and shop-floor data, governed.](https://www.dreamfactory.com/use-cases/manufacturing)

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[Sf Salesforce](https://www.dreamfactory.com/connectors/salesforce) [API REST / SOAP](https://www.dreamfactory.com/connectors/soap-to-rest)

[See all 30+ connectors](https://www.dreamfactory.com/connectors)

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# Transactions in Rest APIs

 by Jason Gilmore

![calendar icon](https://blog.dreamfactory.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/dreamfactory/images/calendar-icon.svg) January 12, 2026

Table of contents

RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

- [A Complete Guide to API Generation](https://blog.dreamfactory.com/a-complete-guide-to-api-generation)
- [10 Best API Management Tools](https://blog.dreamfactory.com/what-is-api-management-a-brief-overview-of-api-management-concepts-and-tools)
- [Creating a Microsoft SQL Server API in Less Than 5 minutes with DreamFactory](https://blog.dreamfactory.com/creating-a-microsoft-sql-server-api-in-less-than-5-minutes-with-dreamfactory)
- [Hasura vs. DreamFactory: A Comprehensive Comparison](https://blog.dreamfactory.com/hasura-vs-dreamfactory)
- [Build A Snowflake REST API in Less Than 5 Minutes](https://blog.dreamfactory.com/generate-a-snowflake-rest-api-in-less-than-5-minutes)

DreamFactory is best known for its ability to generate REST APIs for databases such as SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. While it's undeniably convenient to gain immediate access to autogenerated API endpoints for interacting tables, views, and stored procedures, projects would quickly run aground if the capabilities ended there. For instance, developers will likely want to use [database functions](https://guide.dreamfactory.com/docs/advanced-database-api-features/#using-database-functions-in-api-calls) when querying the database, and will likely require transactional support in order to ensure multi-table insertions and queries are treated as an atomic unit. Fortunately DreamFactory supports transactions in REST APIs, and this post will present an example demonstrating this capability.

Consider a database that contains information about company supplies and their respective locations. The related tables might look like this:

```
CREATE TABLE `supplies` (
  id INT(11) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
  name VARCHAR(100) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
);
```

I'm oversimplifying a bit, but the point is each supply found in the `supplies` table is associated with a location found in the `locations` table. Because a supply couldn't be found without an associated location, it's critical that this relationship is intact for each cataloged supply. Therefore you'll always want to insert a new record into the `locations` table when creating a new `supplies` record. And if either INSERT statement fails, the entire operation should be rolled back. Therefore when performing such a task via a REST API, you'll want to ensure two features are supported:

- Nested inserts
- Transactional support

## Nested Inserts

When DreamFactory generates a new database-backed REST API, it tries to learn everything it can about the schema, including the table relationships. DreamFactory will then assign convenient aliases to these foreign key relationships, allowing the client to subsequently use these aliases for actions such as table joins. They're also useful for nested inserts and nested updates, because you can specify the alias as part of a request payload:

```
{
  "resource": [
  {
    "name": "Stapler",
    "locations_by_supply_id": [
      {
        "name": "Closet"
      }
    ]
  }
]
}
```

If you pass this payload to POST https://example.com/api/v2/some\_database/supplies, you should subsequently see new records in the `supplies` and `locations` tables. But what if the payload were incorrectly defined, and the client specified `title` as the `locations` attribute instead of `name`? If this were to occur, the `supplies` table insert request would succeed but the `locations` insert request would fail! DreamFactory would return an error message that looks like this: `Batch Error: Not all requested records could be created.`

## API Transactions and the rollback Parameter

This unexpected outcome can be remedied by passing `rollback=true` along as a URL parameter:

```
<code>POST https://example.com/api/v2/some_database/supplies?rollback=true</code>
```

Calling the endpoint with a malformed payload will now cause *both* queries to be rolled back should either query fail. It really is that simple!

TAGS: [Database APIs,](https://blog.dreamfactory.com/tag/database-apis) [transactions](https://blog.dreamfactory.com/tag/transactions)

![Jason Gilmore](https://blog.dreamfactory.com/hs-fs/hubfs/e92b7c5571ae1bf1ac6e6326767f35c0.jpeg?width=100&height=100&name=e92b7c5571ae1bf1ac6e6326767f35c0.jpeg)

Jason Gilmore

Jason is the author of almost a dozen books on web development, including most recently Easy Laravel 5, and Beginning PHP and MySQL, 4th Edition. He's the co-founder of the CodeMash Conference, one of the largest software conferences in the Midwestern United States. Jason serves as a technical advisor to the boards of several technology startups. His free time is spent playing with his kids and reading.

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