Differences between READ-COMMITTED and REPEATABLE-READ transaction isolation levels

As an instructor with Percona I’m sometimes asked about the differences between the READ COMMITTED and REPEATABLE READ transaction isolation levels.  There are a few differences between READ-COMMITTED and REPEATABLE-READ, and they are all related to locking.

Extra locking (not gap locking)
It is important to remember that InnoDB actually locks index entries, not rows. During the execution of a statement InnoDB must lock every entry in the index that it traverses to find the rows it is modifying. It must do this to prevent deadlocks and maintain the isolation level.

If you run an UPDATE that is not well indexed you will lock many rows: