Oracle: How to find out if there is a transaction pending?

you can check if your session has a row in V$TRANSACTION (obviously that requires read privilege on this view):

SQL> SELECT COUNT(*)
       FROM v$transaction t, v$session s, v$mystat m
      WHERE t.ses_addr = s.saddr
        AND s.sid = m.sid
        AND ROWNUM = 1;

  COUNT(*)
----------
         0

SQL> insert into a values (1);

1 row inserted

SQL> SELECT COUNT(*)
       FROM v$transaction t, v$session s, v$mystat m
      WHERE t.ses_addr = s.saddr
        AND s.sid = m.sid
        AND ROWNUM = 1;

  COUNT(*)
----------
         1

SQL> commit;

Commit complete

SQL> SELECT COUNT(*)
       FROM v$transaction t, v$session s, v$mystat m
      WHERE t.ses_addr = s.saddr
        AND s.sid = m.sid
        AND ROWNUM = 1;

  COUNT(*)
----------
         0

This is the query I normally use,

select s.sid
      ,s.serial#
      ,s.username
      ,s.machine
      ,s.status
      ,s.lockwait
      ,t.used_ublk
      ,t.used_urec
      ,t.start_time
from v$transaction t
inner join v$session s on t.addr = s.taddr;

SELECT * FROM V$TRANSACTION
WHERE STATUS='ACTIVE';

See: http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=691061

Use the query below to find out pending transaction.

If it returns a value, it means there is a pending transaction.

Here is the query:

select dbms_transaction.step_id from dual;

References:
http://www.acehints.com/2011/07/how-to-check-pending-transaction-in.html http://www.acehints.com/p/site-map.html