Cloud Spanner supports different isolation levels for read-write transactions. You can specify a default isolation level at the client-level, or override it at the transaction-level.

The following example shows how to set the isolation level:

void IsolationLevelSetting(std::string const& project_id,
                           std::string const& instance_id,
                           std::string const& database_id) {
  namespace spanner = ::google::cloud::spanner;
  using ::google::cloud::Options;
  using ::google::cloud::StatusOr;

  auto db = spanner::Database(project_id, instance_id, database_id);

  // The isolation level specified at the client-level will be applied
  // to all RW transactions.
  auto options = Options{}.set<spanner::TransactionIsolationLevelOption>(
      spanner::Transaction::IsolationLevel::kSerializable);
  auto client = spanner::Client(spanner::MakeConnection(db, options));

  auto commit = client.Commit(
      [&client](
          spanner::Transaction const& txn) -> StatusOr<spanner::Mutations> {
        // Read an AlbumTitle.
        auto sql = spanner::SqlStatement(
            "SELECT AlbumTitle from Albums WHERE SingerId = @SingerId and "
            "AlbumId = @AlbumId",
            {{"SingerId", spanner::Value(1)}, {"AlbumId", spanner::Value(1)}});
        auto rows = client.ExecuteQuery(txn, std::move(sql));
        for (auto const& row :
             spanner::StreamOf<std::tuple<std::string>>(rows)) {
          if (!row) return row.status();
          std::cout << "Current album title: " << std::get<0>(*row) << "\n";
        }

        // Update the title.
        auto update_sql = spanner::SqlStatement(
            "UPDATE Albums "
            "SET AlbumTitle = @AlbumTitle "
            "WHERE SingerId = @SingerId and AlbumId = @AlbumId",
            {{"AlbumTitle", spanner::Value("New Album Title")},
             {"SingerId", spanner::Value(1)},
             {"AlbumId", spanner::Value(1)}});
        auto result = client.ExecuteDml(txn, std::move(update_sql));
        if (!result) return result.status();
        std::cout << result->RowsModified() << " record updated.\n";

        return spanner::Mutations{};
      },
      // The isolation level specified at the transaction-level takes
      // precedence over the isolation level configured at the client-level.
      // kRepeatableRead is used here to demonstrate overriding the client-level
      // setting.
      Options{}.set<spanner::TransactionIsolationLevelOption>(
          spanner::Transaction::IsolationLevel::kRepeatableRead));

  if (!commit) throw std::move(commit).status();
  std::cout << "Update was successful [spanner_isolation_level_setting]\n";
}