Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Progress 4GL Handbook

Checking whether a transaction is active

You can use the built-in TRANSACTION function in your procedures to determine whether a transaction is currently active. This logical function returns true if a transaction is active and false otherwise. You might use this, for example, in a subprocedure that is called from multiple places and which needs to react differently depending on whether its caller started a transaction. (When you have a single procedure, you had better not need this function to tell you whether you’ve started a transaction or not!)