Thanks for your reply. After some experiments it seems that by starting a new transaction will not override the autocommit
setting.

SQL> set autocommit on
SQL> set transaction read write
2 ;

Transaction set.

SQL> update test set col1= 'TEST'
2 /

2 rows updated.

Commit complete.
SQL>



Do you know another way of turning off autocommit apart
from SET AUTOCOMMIT OFF?

mcl