I have read the explanations when a commit
may be neccessary after a select
statement for DB2 and MySQL:
Is a commit needed on a select query i
there are only a few situations that I can think of that you may want to commit after a select.
if your select is joining on database links, a transaction will be created. if you attempt to close this link, you'd get an error unless you committed/rolled back the transaction.
select for update (as DCookie says) to release the locks.
to remove an serialized isolation level if set or to add one, if you've been selecting from db links prior to invoking this.