$TL[EVEL] contains a count of executed TSTARTs that are currently unmatched by TCOMMITs. $TLEVEL is zero (0) when there is no TRANSACTION in progress. When $TLEVEL is greater than one (>1), it indicates that there are nested sub-transactions in progress. Sub-transactions are always subject to the completion of the main TRANSACTION and cannot be independently acted upon by COMMIT, ROLLBACK, or RESTART.

$TLEVEL can be used to determine whether there is a TRANSACTION in progress and to determine the level of nesting of sub-transactions.

M routines cannot modify $TLEVEL with SET.

Example:

IF $TLEVEL TROLLBACK

This example performs a TROLLBACK if a transaction is in progress. A statement like this should appear in any error handler used with transaction processing. For more information on transaction processing, see Chapter 5: “General Language Features of M”.