>So it works like "mark records for deletion" and defers the "pack" until the commit?
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>I've actually been struggling the last two minutes between typing, "well, sort of"....and "well, not really" :)
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>When SQL Server deletes a row (even in a txaction), it's not so much marked - in the txaction log, there are 2 system tables (INSERTED/DELETED), available inside a trigger, to see the state of the row before/after the DML statement (in this case, a DELETE). The txaction manager works in conjunction with a transaction log. (This is probably why newer relational engines, like those in Azure, require each table to have a PK)
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>I realize you didn't mention FoxPro, but since the concept of "mark records for deletion" and the VFP DELETED() function are obviously part of all our vocabulary - SQL Server doesn't have a SET DELETED OFF or a filter capability on what's DELETED(). So it's a bit of apples and oranges (part of why I struggled years ago in the learning curve to SQL). Some people who move from VFP to SQL wind up creating a DELFLAG column for each table, and prefer to use that, because they're initially more comfortable with the behavior.
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>I think the more accurate thing to say is that SQL Server has logged the location for the data pages to be de-allocated - and refers to those addresses if a rollback occurs. My understanding is that the disk space is "protected" during that stage, though I don't know if I'd want to rely on that.

Didn't mean to really parallel it with VFP but I was referring to the idea that actuall truncation (which I didn't even know you could do in a transaction as I find programmatic truncation kind of scary anyway as I just haven't found a use case where I thought it was the best thing to do) was deferred in some way - i.e. the table would be treated as truncated within the context of the transaction but that would not be a fact in storage until the transaction was committed.

I just figured it was done by elves, or magic or something. Trying to understand it more deeply than that (when I know guys Iike you I can ask if I really need to know <g> ) just makes my head hurt.

I am spending the day trying to master Angular, Bootstrap, Breeze, underscore, require, WebAPI, EF and mocks and repository patterns.

Tomorrow I will seriously consider developing a drug habit.