The documentation says:
Configuring \"NO ACTION\" means just that: when a parent key is modified or deleted from the database, no special action is
The introducing paragraph says:
If an action is not explicitly specified, it defaults to "NO ACTION".
This is the normal action.
Furthermore:
The difference between the effect of a RESTRICT action and normal foreign key constraint enforcement is that the RESTRICT action processing happens as soon as the field is updated - not at the end of the current statement as it would with an immediate constraint, or at the end of the current transaction as it would with a deferred constraint.
If you're testing with a single-statement transaction that changes just one record, you will not see any difference between NO ACTION
and RESTRICT
.