It seems Ecto.Multi may be exactly what you need: http://hexdocs.pm/ecto/Ecto.Multi.html

It answers questions 1 and 3 and it may as well answer question 2 too.

Almost two years later: yes, according to the official docs any exception raised inside the function given to Repo.transaction will result in a rollback.

Please note though, the third insert in your code is not using the bang variant of the function (namely it’s not insert!) and will thus not raise an exception so the transaction will likely still succeed with only partial success – not good.

EDIT: The above is NOT true: Ecto.Multi docs

To use Repo.transaction, do one of these:

1. Either use bang functions everywhere in the transaction function (Repo.insert!, Repo.update! etc.), or…
2. Use the with keyword and chain all the operations through non-bang functions and call Repo.rollback in the else clause – which would mean that the first failed operation will return {:error, reason} and the transaction will return that exact error so you can troubleshoot further afterwards. Or…
3. Just use Ecto.Multi which will give you even more info if an operation fails. It’s really the best way of doing such composite operations ever since it was introduced. Just have one Ecto.Multi variable and append all your operations to it, then just execute it at once: Repo.transaction(your_multi).

It’s best if you don’t mix these styles. Just pick one and stick with it.

I started off using more hacky solutions and trying to be clever but nowadays I am always using Ecto.Multi and I am very pleased with the results. The code is much easier for a human to understand as well, which is a huge bonus win.

Thanks for the reply @jose.

Do you think we can go through an example? I couldn’t find anything online

  transaction = Repo.transaction fn ->
    location = location || Repo.insert!(location_changeset)

    item_name = photo_params["item_name"]
    item = Repo.get_by(App.Item, [name: item_name, location_id: location.id])

    item_changeset = 
      location
      |> build_assoc(:items)
      |> App.Item.changeset(Map.put(photo_params, "name", item_name))
    item = item || Repo.insert!(item_changeset)

    photo_changeset =
      location
      |> build_assoc(:photos, item_id: item.id, user_id: current_user.id)
      |> Photo.changeset(photo_params)
    Repo.insert(photo_changeset)
  end
  
  case transaction do
    {:ok, _photo} ->
      conn
      |> redirect(to: phto_path(conn, :index))
    {:error, changeset} ->
      render(conn, "new.html", changeset: changeset)
  end

Would ecto rollback everything when the second or third Repo.insert fails? Also, is there a way to cascade a changeset with multiple schemas?