Let me recap what I've understood what has been said:
a) you can nest save points;
b) save points may have a begin-instruction.
What about a little experiment. Here is my code for the experiment:
1 SAVEPOINT "A";
2 CREATE TABLE T1 (X TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT "");
3
4 SAVEPOINT "B";
5 INSERT INTO T1 (X)
6 VALUES ("A"), ("B");
7 SELECT "What was inserted?";
8 SELECT * FROM T1;
9 BEGIN;
10 INSERT INTO T1 (X)
11 SELECT "C";
12 SELECT "What was inserted?";
13 SELECT * FROM T1;
14 ROLLBACK;
15 SELECT "What was inserted?";
16 SELECT * FROM T1;
17 END;
18 DELETE FROM T1;
19 SELECT "What was inserted?";
20 SELECT * FROM T1;
21 ROLLBACK;
22 SELECT "What was inserted?";
23 SELECT * FROM T1;
24
save as 't1.sql' and execute sqlite3 t1.db < t1.sql
Here is the result:
What was inserted?
A
B
Error: near line 9: cannot start a transaction within a transaction
What was inserted?
A
B
C
What was inserted?
Error: near line 16: no such table: T1 (→ Rolled the database back to save point A
Error: near line 17: cannot commit - no transaction is active
Error: near line 18: no such table: T1
What was inserted?
Error: near line 20: no such table: T1
Error: near line 21: cannot rollback - no transaction is active
What was inserted?
Error: near line 23: no such table: T1
I think the behavior is different from what I've understood, and I think it isn't compliant with what is stipulated on this page https://sqlite.org/lang_savepoint.html