Obsessed with Oracle PL/SQL

This question rolled into my In Box today: If I have a procedure that is AUTONOMOUS_TRANSACTION that does an insert and then it calls a procedure with an insert, does the second procedure need a commit, or will the procedure with the AUTONOMOUS_TRANSACTION handle the commit? If you don't know off the top of your head, don't worry, I can build a test. First of all, if you ever find yourself writing something like "If you don't know off the top of your head, don't worry, I can build a test." then please by all means go right ahead and build yourself a test script. By doing so, you will better understand the feature in question and remember what you learned. Plus you end up with a script you can share with the community on LiveSQL . But I don't mind answering such questions. That way I get to better understand the feature in question, remember what I learned, share a script on LiveSQL (link at bottom of post), and also add to my blog. :-) So here goe...

I received this question in my In Box over the weekend: Hi Steven, I have grown up reading the PL/SQL bible, Oracle PL/SQL Programming. I have the 5th edition with me right now, Indian reprint, ISBN - 971-81-8404-949-7. I was going through the chapter 21 : Optimizing PL/SQL performance. Please refer to the section 'ROLLBACK behaviour with FORALL'.  In point number 2, it's mentioned that "Any previous DML operations in that FORALL statement that already completed without any error are NOT rolled back." Can you please explain this ? As far as I understand a FORALL can have only one DML statement, so all the previous work done by the DML will be rolled back. Thanks for your time. Hoping a response soon. An Indian reprint of the 5th edition? You are so lucky. I don't even have one of those. I don't even have a copy of that! I will have to ask my friends at O'Reilly Media for a copy! :-)  Now to answer your question, and it is ...