The preferred approach is to use Spring's highest level persistence integration APIs. These do not replace the native APIs, but internally handle resource creation/reuse, cleanup, optional transaction synchronization of the resources and exception mapping so that user data access code doesn't have to worry about these concerns at all, but can concentrate purely on non-boilerplate persistence logic. Generally, the same template approach is used for all persistence APIs, with examples including the JdbcTemplate, HibernateTemplate, and JdoTemplate classes (detailed in subsequent chapters of this reference documentation.

At a lower level exist classes such as DataSourceUtils (for JDBC), SessionFactoryUtils (for Hibernate), PersistenceManagerFactoryUtils (for JDO), and so on. When it is preferable for application code to deal directly with the resource types of the native persistence APIs, these classes ensure that proper Spring Framework-managed instances are obtained, transactions are (optionally) synchronized, and exceptions which happen in the process are properly mapped to a consistent API.

For example, in the case of JDBC, instead of the traditional JDBC approach of calling the getConnection() method on the DataSource, you would instead use Spring's org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceUtils class as follows:

Connection conn = DataSourceUtils.getConnection(dataSource);

If an existing transaction exists, and already has a connection synchronized (linked) to it, that instance will be returned. Otherwise, the method call will trigger the creation of a new connection, which will be (optionally) synchronized to any existing transaction, and made available for subsequent reuse in that same transaction. As mentioned, this has the added advantage that any SQLException will be wrapped in a Spring Framework CannotGetJdbcConnectionException - one of the Spring Framework's hierarchy of unchecked DataAccessExceptions. This gives you more information than can easily be obtained from the SQLException, and ensures portability across databases: even across different persistence technologies.

It should be noted that this will also work fine without Spring transaction management (transaction synchronization is optional), so you can use it whether or not you are using Spring for transaction management.

Of course, once you've used Spring's JDBC support or Hibernate support, you will generally prefer not to use DataSourceUtils or the other helper classes, because you'll be much happier working via the Spring abstraction than directly with the relevant APIs. For example, if you use the Spring JdbcTemplate or jdbc.object package to simplify your use of JDBC, correct connection retrieval happens behind the scenes and you won't need to write any special code.

At the very lowest level exists the TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy class. This is a proxy for a target DataSource, which wraps the target DataSource to add awareness of Spring-managed transactions. In this respect, it is similar to a transactional JNDI DataSource as provided by a J2EE server.

It should almost never be necessary or desirable to use this class, except when existing code exists which must be called and passed a standard JDBC DataSource interface implementation. In that case, it's possible to still have this code be usable, but participating in Spring managed transactions. It is preferable to write your new code using the higher level abstractions mentioned above.

The aim of this section is to dispel the mystique that is sometimes associated with the use of declarative transactions. It is all very well for this reference documentation simply to tell you to annotate your classes with the @Transactional annotation, add the line ('<tx:annotation-driven/>') to your configuration, and then expect you to understand how it all works. This section will explain the inner workings of the Spring Framework's declarative transaction infrastructure to help you navigate your way back upstream to calmer waters in the event of transaction-related issues.

The most important concepts to grasp with regard to the Spring Framework's declarative transaction support are that this support is enabled via AOP proxies, and that the transactional advice is driven by metadata (currently XML- or annotation-based). The combination of AOP with transactional metadata yields an AOP proxy that uses a TransactionInterceptor in conjunction with an appropriate PlatformTransactionManager implementation to drive transactions around method invocations.

	Note
	Although knowledge of Spring AOP is not required to use Spring's declarative transaction support, it can help. Spring AOP is thoroughly covered in the chapter entitled Chapter 6, Aspect Oriented Programming with Spring.

Conceptually, calling a method on a transactional proxy looks like this...

Consider the following interface, and its attendant implementation. (The intent is to convey the concepts, and using the rote Foo and Bar tropes means that you can concentrate on the transaction usage and not have to worry about the domain model.)

// the service interface that we want to make transactional

package x.y.service;

public interface FooService {

  Foo getFoo(String fooName);

  Foo getFoo(String fooName, String barName);

  void insertFoo(Foo foo);

  void updateFoo(Foo foo);

}

// an implementation of the above interface

package x.y.service;

public class DefaultFooService implements FooService {

  public Foo getFoo(String fooName) {
    throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
  }

  public Foo getFoo(String fooName, String barName) {
    throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
  }

  public void insertFoo(Foo foo) {
    throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
  }

  public void updateFoo(Foo foo) {
    throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
  }

}

(For the purposes of this example, the fact that the DefaultFooService class throws UnsupportedOperationException instances in the body of each implemented method is good; it will allow us to see transactions being created and then rolled back in response to the UnsupportedOperationException instance being thrown.)

Let's assume that the first two methods of the FooService interface (getFoo(String) and getFoo(String, String)) have to execute in the context of a transaction with read-only semantics, and that the other methods (insertFoo(Foo) and updateFoo(Foo)) have to execute in the context of a transaction with read-write semantics. Don't worry about taking the following configuration in all at once; everything will be explained in detail in the next few paragraphs.

<!-- from the file 'context.xml' -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
     xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
     xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
     xsi:schemaLocation="
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-2.5.xsd
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-2.5.xsd">
  
  <!-- this is the service object that we want to make transactional -->
  <bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>

  <!-- the transactional advice (what 'happens'; see the <aop:advisor/> bean below) -->
  <tx:advice id="txAdvice" transaction-manager="txManager">
  <!-- the transactional semantics... -->
  <tx:attributes>
    <!-- all methods starting with 'get' are read-only -->
    <tx:method name="get*" read-only="true"/>
    <!-- other methods use the default transaction settings (see below) -->
    <tx:method name="*"/>
  </tx:attributes>
  </tx:advice>
  
  <!-- ensure that the above transactional advice runs for any execution
    of an operation defined by the FooService interface -->
  <aop:config>
  <aop:pointcut id="fooServiceOperation" expression="execution(* x.y.service.FooService.*(..))"/>
  <aop:advisor advice-ref="txAdvice" pointcut-ref="fooServiceOperation"/>
  </aop:config>
  
  <!-- don't forget the DataSource -->
  <bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">
  <property name="driverClassName" value="oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver"/>
  <property name="url" value="jdbc:oracle:thin:@rj-t42:1521:elvis"/>
  <property name="username" value="scott"/>
  <property name="password" value="tiger"/>
  </bean>

  <!-- similarly, don't forget the PlatformTransactionManager -->
  <bean id="txManager" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager">
  <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
  </bean>
  
  <!-- other <bean/> definitions here -->

</beans>

Let's pick apart the above configuration. We have a service object (the 'fooService' bean) that we want to make transactional. The transaction semantics that we want to apply are encapsulated in the <tx:advice/> definition. The <tx:advice/> definition reads as “... all methods on starting with 'get' are to execute in the context of a read-only transaction, and all other methods are to execute with the default transaction semantics”. The 'transaction-manager' attribute of the <tx:advice/> tag is set to the name of the PlatformTransactionManager bean that is going to actually drive the transactions (in this case the 'txManager' bean).

	Tip
	You can actually omit the 'transaction-manager' attribute in the transactional advice (<tx:advice/>) if the bean name of the PlatformTransactionManager that you want to wire in has the name 'transactionManager'. If the PlatformTransactionManager bean that you want to wire in has any other name, then you have to be explicit and use the 'transaction-manager' attribute as in the example above.

The <aop:config/> definition ensures that the transactional advice defined by the 'txAdvice' bean actually executes at the appropriate points in the program. First we define a pointcut that matches the execution of any operation defined in the FooService interface ('fooServiceOperation'). Then we associate the pointcut with the 'txAdvice' using an advisor. The result indicates that at the execution of a 'fooServiceOperation', the advice defined by 'txAdvice' will be run.

The expression defined within the <aop:pointcut/> element is an AspectJ pointcut expression; see the chapter entitled Chapter 6, Aspect Oriented Programming with Spring for more details on pointcut expressions in Spring 2.0.

A common requirement is to make an entire service layer transactional. The best way to do this is simply to change the pointcut expression to match any operation in your service layer. For example:

<aop:config>
  <aop:pointcut id="fooServiceMethods" expression="execution(* x.y.service.*.*(..))"/>
  <aop:advisor advice-ref="txAdvice" pointcut-ref="fooServiceMethods"/>
  </aop:config>

(This example assumes that all your service interfaces are defined in the 'x.y.service' package; see the chapter entitled Chapter 6, Aspect Oriented Programming with Spring for more details.)

Now that we've analyzed the configuration, you may be asking yourself, “Okay... but what does all this configuration actually do?”.

The above configuration is going to effect the creation of a transactional proxy around the object that is created from the 'fooService' bean definition. The proxy will be configured with the transactional advice, so that when an appropriate method is invoked on the proxy, a transaction may be started, suspended, be marked as read-only, etc., depending on the transaction configuration associated with that method. Consider the following program that test drives the above configuration.

public final class Boot {

  public static void main(final String[] args) throws Exception {
    ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("context.xml", Boot.class);
    FooService fooService = (FooService) ctx.getBean("fooService");
    fooService.insertFoo (new Foo());
  }
}

The output from running the above program will look something like this. (Please note that the Log4J output and the stacktrace from the UnsupportedOperationException thrown by the insertFoo(..) method of the DefaultFooService class have been truncated in the interest of clarity.)

  <!-- the Spring container is starting up... -->
[AspectJInvocationContextExposingAdvisorAutoProxyCreator] - Creating implicit proxy
    for bean 'fooService' with 0 common interceptors and 1 specific interceptors
  <!-- the DefaultFooService is actually proxied -->
[JdkDynamicAopProxy] - Creating JDK dynamic proxy for [x.y.service.DefaultFooService]

  <!-- ... the insertFoo(..) method is now being invoked on the proxy -->

[TransactionInterceptor] - Getting transaction for x.y.service.FooService.insertFoo
  <!-- the transactional advice kicks in here... -->
[DataSourceTransactionManager] - Creating new transaction with name [x.y.service.FooService.insertFoo]
[DataSourceTransactionManager] - Acquired Connection
    [org.apache.commons.dbcp.PoolableConnection@a53de4] for JDBC transaction

  <!-- the insertFoo(..) method from DefaultFooService throws an exception... -->
[RuleBasedTransactionAttribute] - Applying rules to determine whether transaction should
    rollback on java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException
[TransactionInterceptor] - Invoking rollback for transaction on x.y.service.FooService.insertFoo
    due to throwable [java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException]

   <!-- and the transaction is rolled back (by default, RuntimeException instances cause rollback) -->
[DataSourceTransactionManager] - Rolling back JDBC transaction on Connection
    [org.apache.commons.dbcp.PoolableConnection@a53de4]
[DataSourceTransactionManager] - Releasing JDBC Connection after transaction
[DataSourceUtils] - Returning JDBC Connection to DataSource

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException
	at x.y.service.DefaultFooService.insertFoo(DefaultFooService.java:14)
   <!-- AOP infrastructure stack trace elements removed for clarity -->
	at $Proxy0.insertFoo(Unknown Source)
	at Boot.main(Boot.java:11)

The previous section outlined the basics of how to specify the transactional settings for the classes, typically service layer classes, in your application in a declarative fashion. This section describes how you can control the rollback of transactions in a simple declarative fashion.

The recommended way to indicate to the Spring Framework's transaction infrastructure that a transaction's work is to be rolled back is to throw an Exception from code that is currently executing in the context of a transaction. The Spring Framework's transaction infrastructure code will catch any unhandled Exception as it bubbles up the call stack, and will mark the transaction for rollback.

Note however that the Spring Framework's transaction infrastructure code will, by default, only mark a transaction for rollback in the case of runtime, unchecked exceptions; that is, when the thrown exception is an instance or subclass of RuntimeException. (Errors will also - by default - result in a rollback.) Checked exceptions that are thrown from a transactional method will not result in the transaction being rolled back.

Exactly which Exception types mark a transaction for rollback can be configured. Find below a snippet of XML configuration that demonstrates how one would configure rollback for a checked, application-specific Exception type.

<tx:advice id="txAdvice" transaction-manager="txManager">
  <tx:attributes>
  <tx:method name="get*" read-only="true" rollback-for="NoProductInStockException"/>
  <tx:method name="*"/>
  </tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

It is also possible to specify 'no rollback rules', for those times when you do not want a transaction to be marked for rollback when an exception is thrown. In the example configuration below, we effectively are telling the Spring Framework's transaction infrastructure to commit the attendant transaction even in the face of an unhandled InstrumentNotFoundException.

<tx:advice id="txAdvice">
  <tx:attributes>
  <tx:method name="updateStock" no-rollback-for="InstrumentNotFoundException"/>
  <tx:method name="*"/>
  </tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

When the Spring Framework's transaction infrastructure has caught an exception and is consulting any configured rollback rules to determine whether or not to mark the transaction for rollback, the strongest matching rule wins. So in the case of the following configuration, any exception other than an InstrumentNotFoundException would result in the attendant transaction being marked for rollback.

<tx:advice id="txAdvice">
  <tx:attributes>
  <tx:method name="*" rollback-for="Throwable" no-rollback-for="InstrumentNotFoundException"/>
  </tx:attributes>
</tx:advice>

The second way to indicate that a rollback is required is to do so programmatically. Although very simple, this way is quite invasive, and tightly couples your code to the Spring Framework's transaction infrastructure, as can be seen below:

public void resolvePosition() {
  try {
    // some business logic...
  } catch (NoProductInStockException ex) {
    // trigger rollback programmatically
    TransactionAspectSupport.currentTransactionStatus().setRollbackOnly();
  }
}

You are strongly encouraged to use the declarative approach to rollback if at all possible. Programmatic rollback is available should you absolutely need it, but its usage flies in the face of achieving a nice, clean POJO-based architecture.

Consider the scenario where you have a number of service layer objects, and you want to apply totally different transactional configuration to each of them. This is achieved by defining distinct <aop:advisor/> elements with differing 'pointcut' and 'advice-ref' attribute values.

Let's assume that all of your service layer classes are defined in a root 'x.y.service' package. To make all beans that are instances of classes defined in that package (or in subpackages) and that have names ending in 'Service' have the default transactional configuration, you would write the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
  xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
  xsi:schemaLocation="
  http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
  http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-2.5.xsd
  http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-2.5.xsd">

  <aop:config>

    <aop:pointcut id="serviceOperation"
          expression="execution(* x.y.service..*Service.*(..))"/>

    <aop:advisor pointcut-ref="serviceOperation" advice-ref="txAdvice"/>

  </aop:config>

  <!-- these two beans will be transactional... -->
  <bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>
  <bean id="barService" class="x.y.service.extras.SimpleBarService"/>

  <!-- ... and these two beans won't -->
  <bean id="anotherService" class="org.xyz.SomeService"/> <!-- (not in the right package) -->
  <bean id="barManager" class="x.y.service.SimpleBarManager"/> <!-- (doesn't end in 'Service') -->

  <tx:advice id="txAdvice">
    <tx:attributes>
      <tx:method name="get*" read-only="true"/>
      <tx:method name="*"/>
    </tx:attributes>
  </tx:advice>

  <!-- other transaction infrastructure beans such as a PlatformTransactionManager omitted... -->

</beans>

Find below an example of configuring two distinct beans with totally different transactional settings.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
  xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
  xsi:schemaLocation="
  http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
  http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-2.5.xsd
  http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-2.5.xsd">

  <aop:config>

    <aop:pointcut id="defaultServiceOperation"
          expression="execution(* x.y.service.*Service.*(..))"/>

    <aop:pointcut id="noTxServiceOperation"
          expression="execution(* x.y.service.ddl.DefaultDdlManager.*(..))"/>

    <aop:advisor pointcut-ref="defaultServiceOperation" advice-ref="defaultTxAdvice"/>

    <aop:advisor pointcut-ref="noTxServiceOperation" advice-ref="noTxAdvice"/>

  </aop:config>

  <!-- this bean will be transactional (see the 'defaultServiceOperation' pointcut) -->
  <bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>

  <!-- this bean will also be transactional, but with totally different transactional settings -->
  <bean id="anotherFooService" class="x.y.service.ddl.DefaultDdlManager"/>

  <tx:advice id="defaultTxAdvice">
    <tx:attributes>
      <tx:method name="get*" read-only="true"/>
      <tx:method name="*"/>
    </tx:attributes>
  </tx:advice>

  <tx:advice id="noTxAdvice">
    <tx:attributes>
      <tx:method name="*" propagation="NEVER"/>
    </tx:attributes>
  </tx:advice>

  <!-- other transaction infrastructure beans such as a PlatformTransactionManager omitted... -->

</beans>

This section summarises the various transactional settings that can be specified using the <tx:advice/> tag. The default <tx:advice/> settings are:

These default settings can be changed; the various attributes of the <tx:method/> tags that are nested within <tx:advice/> and <tx:attributes/> tags are summarized below:

At the time of writing it is not possible to have explicit control over the name of a transaction, where 'name' means the transaction name that will be shown in a transaction monitor, if applicable (for example, WebLogic's transaction monitor), and in logging output. For declarative transactions, the transaction name is always the fully-qualified class name + "." + method name of the transactionally-advised class. For example 'com.foo.BusinessService.handlePayment'.

	Note
	The functionality offered by the @Transactional annotation and the support classes is only available to you if you are using at least Java 5 (Tiger).

In addition to the XML-based declarative approach to transaction configuration, you can also use an annotation-based approach to transaction configuration. Declaring transaction semantics directly in the Java source code puts the declarations much closer to the affected code, and there is generally not much danger of undue coupling, since code that is meant to be used transactionally is almost always deployed that way anyway.

The ease-of-use afforded by the use of the @Transactional annotation is best illustrated with an example, after which all of the details will be explained. Consider the following class definition:

// the service class that we want to make transactional
@Transactional
public class DefaultFooService implements FooService {

  Foo getFoo(String fooName);

  Foo getFoo(String fooName, String barName);

  void insertFoo(Foo foo);

  void updateFoo(Foo foo);
}

When the above POJO is defined as a bean in a Spring IoC container, the bean instance can be made transactional by adding merely one line of XML configuration, like so:

<!-- from the file 'context.xml' -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
     xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
     xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
     xsi:schemaLocation="
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-2.5.xsd
     http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-2.5.xsd">
  
  <!-- this is the service object that we want to make transactional -->
  <bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>

  <!-- enable the configuration of transactional behavior based on annotations -->
  <tx:annotation-driven transaction-manager="txManager"/>

  <!-- a PlatformTransactionManager is still required -->
  <bean id="txManager" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager">
  <!-- (this dependency is defined somewhere else) -->
  <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
  </bean>
  
  <!-- other <bean/> definitions here -->

</beans>

	Tip
	You can actually omit the 'transaction-manager' attribute in the <tx:annotation-driven/> tag if the bean name of the PlatformTransactionManager that you want to wire in has the name 'transactionManager'. If the PlatformTransactionManager bean that you want to dependency inject has any other name, then you have to be explicit and use the 'transaction-manager' attribute as in the example above.

The @Transactional annotation may be placed before an interface definition, a method on an interface, a class definition, or a public method on a class. However, please note that the mere presence of the @Transactional annotation is not enough to actually turn on the transactional behavior - the @Transactional annotation is simply metadata that can be consumed by something that is @Transactional-aware and that can use the metadata to configure the appropriate beans with transactional behavior. In the case of the above example, it is the presence of the <tx:annotation-driven/> element that switches on the transactional behavior.

The Spring team's recommendation is that you only annotate concrete classes with the @Transactional annotation, as opposed to annotating interfaces. You certainly can place the @Transactional annotation on an interface (or an interface method), but this will only work as you would expect it to if you are using interface-based proxies. The fact that annotations are not inherited means that if you are using class-based proxies (proxy-target-class="true") or the weaving-based aspect (mode="aspectj") then the transaction settings will not be recognised by the proxying/weaving infrastructure and the object will not be wrapped in a transactional proxy (which would be decidedly bad). So please do take the Spring team's advice and only annotate concrete classes (and the methods of concrete classes) with the @Transactional annotation.

Note: In proxy mode (which is the default), only 'external' method calls coming in through the proxy will be intercepted. This means that 'self-invocation', i.e. a method within the target object calling some other method of the target object, won't lead to an actual transaction at runtime even if the invoked method is marked with @Transactional!

Consider the use of AspectJ mode (see below) if you expect self-invocations to be wrapped with transactions as well. In this case, there won't be a proxy in the first place; instead, the target class will be 'weaved' (i.e. its byte code will be modified) in order to turn @Transactional into runtime behavior on any kind of method.

Note

The "proxy-target-class" attribute on the <tx:annotation-driven/> element controls what type of transactional proxies are created for classes annotated with the @Transactional annotation. If "proxy-target-class" attribute is set to "true", then class-based proxies will be created. If "proxy-target-class" is "false" or if the attribute is omitted, then standard JDK interface-based proxies will be created. (See the section entitled Section 6.6, “Proxying mechanisms” for a detailed examination of the different proxy types.)

	Note
	Note that <tx:annotation-driven/> only looks for @Transactional on beans in the same application context it is defined in. This means that, if you put <tx:annotation-driven/> in a WebApplicationContext for a DispatcherServlet, it only checks for @Transactional beans in your controllers, and not your services. See Section 13.2, “The DispatcherServlet” for more information.

The most derived location takes precedence when evaluating the transactional settings for a method. In the case of the following example, the DefaultFooService class is annotated at the class level with the settings for a read-only transaction, but the @Transactional annotation on the updateFoo(Foo) method in the same class takes precedence over the transactional settings defined at the class level.

@Transactional(readOnly = true)
public class DefaultFooService implements FooService {

  public Foo getFoo(String fooName) {
    // do something
  }

  // these settings have precedence for this method
  @Transactional(readOnly = false, propagation = Propagation.REQUIRES_NEW)
  public void updateFoo(Foo foo) {
    // do something
  }
}

com.foo.BusinessService.handlePayment

Please note that this section of the Spring reference documentation is not an introduction to transaction propagation proper; rather it details some of the semantics regarding transaction propagation in Spring.

In the case of Spring-managed transactions, please be aware of the difference between physical and logical transactions, and how the propagation setting applies to this difference.

9.5.7.1. Required

PROPAGATION_REQUIRED

When the propagation setting is PROPAGATION_REQUIRED, a logical transaction scope is created for each method that it gets applied to. Each such logical transaction scope can individually decide on rollback-only status, with an outer transaction scope being logically independent from the inner transaction scope. Of course, in case of standard PROPAGATION_REQUIRED behavior, they will be mapped to the same physical transaction. So a rollback-only marker set in the inner transaction scope does affect the outer transactions chance to actually commit (as you would expect it to).

However, in the case where an inner transaction scopes sets the rollback-only marker, the outer transaction itself has not decided on the rollback itself, and so the rollback (silently triggered by the inner transaction scope) is unexpected: a corresponding UnexpectedRollbackException will be thrown at that point. This is expected behavior so that the caller of a transaction can never be misled to assume that a commit was performed when it really was not. So if an inner transaction (that the outer caller is not aware of) silently marks a transaction as rollback-only, the outer caller would still innocently call commit - and needs to receive an UnexpectedRollbackException to indicate clearly that a rollback was performed instead.

9.5.7.2. RequiresNew

PROPAGATION_REQUIRES_NEW

PROPAGATION_REQUIRES_NEW, in contrast, uses a completely independent transaction for each affected transaction scope. In that case, the underlying physical transactions will be different and hence can commit or rollback independently, with an outer transaction not affected by an inner transaction's rollback status.

Consider the situation where you would like to execute both transactional and (to keep things simple) some basic profiling advice. How do you effect this in the context of using <tx:annotation-driven/>?

What we want to see when we invoke the updateFoo(Foo) method is:

	Note
	This chapter is not concerned with explaining AOP in any great detail (except as it applies to transactions). Please see the chapter entitled Chapter 6, Aspect Oriented Programming with Spring for detailed coverage of the various bits and pieces of the following AOP configuration (and AOP in general).

Here is the code for a simple profiling aspect. The ordering of advice is controlled via the Ordered interface. For full details on advice ordering, see Section 6.2.4.7, “Advice ordering”.

package x.y;

import org.aspectj.lang.ProceedingJoinPoint;
import org.springframework.util.StopWatch;
import org.springframework.core.Ordered;

public class SimpleProfiler implements Ordered {

  private int order;

  // allows us to control the ordering of advice
  public int getOrder() {
    return this.order;
  }

  public void setOrder(int order) {
    this.order = order;
  }

  // this method is the around advice
  public Object profile(ProceedingJoinPoint call) throws Throwable {
    Object returnValue;
    StopWatch clock = new StopWatch(getClass().getName());
    try {
      clock.start(call.toShortString());
      returnValue = call.proceed();
    } finally {
      clock.stop();
      System.out.println(clock.prettyPrint());
    }
    return returnValue;
  }
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
     xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
     xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
     xsi:schemaLocation="
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-2.5.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-2.5.xsd">

  <bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>

  <!-- this is the aspect -->
  <bean id="profiler" class="x.y.SimpleProfiler">
    <!-- execute before the transactional advice (hence the lower order number) -->
    <property name="order" value="1"/>
  </bean>

  <tx:annotation-driven transaction-manager="txManager" order="200"/>

  <aop:config>
    <!-- this advice will execute around the transactional advice -->
    <aop:aspect id="profilingAspect" ref="profiler">
      <aop:pointcut id="serviceMethodWithReturnValue"
              expression="execution(!void x.y..*Service.*(..))"/>
      <aop:around method="profile" pointcut-ref="serviceMethodWithReturnValue"/>
    </aop:aspect>
  </aop:config>

  <bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">
    <property name="driverClassName" value="oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver"/>
    <property name="url" value="jdbc:oracle:thin:@rj-t42:1521:elvis"/>
    <property name="username" value="scott"/>
    <property name="password" value="tiger"/>
  </bean>

  <bean id="txManager" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager">
    <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
  </bean>

</beans>

The result of the above configuration will be a 'fooService' bean that has profiling and transactional aspects applied to it in that order. The configuration of any number of additional aspects is effected in a similar fashion.

Finally, find below some example configuration for effecting the same setup as above, but using the purely XML declarative approach.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
     xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
     xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
     xsi:schemaLocation="
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-2.5.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-2.5.xsd">

  <bean id="fooService" class="x.y.service.DefaultFooService"/>

  <!-- the profiling advice -->
  <bean id="profiler" class="x.y.SimpleProfiler">
    <!-- execute before the transactional advice (hence the lower order number) -->
    <property name="order" value="1"/>
  </bean>

  <aop:config>

    <aop:pointcut id="entryPointMethod" expression="execution(* x.y..*Service.*(..))"/>

    <!-- will execute after the profiling advice (c.f. the order attribute) -->
    <aop:advisor
        advice-ref="txAdvice"
        pointcut-ref="entryPointMethod"
        order="2"/> <!-- order value is higher than the profiling aspect -->

    <aop:aspect id="profilingAspect" ref="profiler">
      <aop:pointcut id="serviceMethodWithReturnValue"
              expression="execution(!void x.y..*Service.*(..))"/>
      <aop:around method="profile" pointcut-ref="serviceMethodWithReturnValue"/>
    </aop:aspect>

  </aop:config>

  <tx:advice id="txAdvice" transaction-manager="txManager">
    <tx:attributes>
      <tx:method name="get*" read-only="true"/>
      <tx:method name="*"/>
    </tx:attributes>
  </tx:advice>

  <!-- other <bean/> definitions such as a DataSource and a PlatformTransactionManager here -->

</beans>

The result of the above configuration will be a 'fooService' bean that has profiling and transactional aspects applied to it in that order. If we wanted the profiling advice to execute after the transactional advice on the way in, and before the transactional advice on the way out, then we would simply swap the value of the profiling aspect bean's 'order' property such that it was higher than the transactional advice's order value.

The configuration of any number of additional aspects is achieved in a similar fashion.

It is also possible to use the Spring Framework's @Transactional support outside of a Spring container by means of an AspectJ aspect. To use this support you must first annotate your classes (and optionally your classes' methods with the @Transactional annotation, and then you must link (weave) your application with the org.springframework.transaction.aspectj.AnnotationTransactionAspect defined in the spring-aspects.jar file. The aspect must also be configured with a transaction manager. You could of course use the Spring Framework's IoC container to take care of dependency injecting the aspect. The simplest way to configure the transaction management aspect is to use the '<tx:annotation-driven/>' element and specify the mode attribute to asepctj as described in Section 9.5.6, “Using @Transactional”. Since we're focusing here on applications running outside of a Spring container, we'll show you how to do it programmatically.

	Note
	Prior to continuing, you may well want to read the previous sections entitled Section 9.5.6, “Using @Transactional” and Chapter 6, Aspect Oriented Programming with Spring respectively.

// construct an appropriate transaction manager 
DataSourceTransactionManager txManager = new DataSourceTransactionManager(getDataSource());

// configure the AnnotationTransactionAspect to use it; this must be done before executing any transactional methods
AnnotationTransactionAspect.aspectOf().setTransactionManager(txManager); 

	Note
	When using this aspect, you must annotate the implementation class (and/or methods within that class), not the interface (if any) that the class implements. AspectJ follows Java's rule that annotations on interfaces are not inherited.

The @Transactional annotation on a class specifies the default transaction semantics for the execution of any method in the class.

The @Transactional annotation on a method within the class overrides the default transaction semantics given by the class annotation (if present). Any method may be annotated, regardless of visibility.

To weave your applications with the AnnotationTransactionAspect you must either build your application with AspectJ (see the AspectJ Development Guide) or use load-time weaving. See the section entitled Section 6.8.4, “Load-time weaving with AspectJ in the Spring Framework” for a discussion of load-time weaving with AspectJ.

The TransactionTemplate adopts the same approach as other Spring templates such as the JdbcTemplate. It uses a callback approach, to free application code from having to do the boilerplate acquisition and release of transactional resources, and results in code that is intention driven, in that the code that is written focuses solely on what the developer wants to do.

	Note
	As you will immediately see in the examples that follow, using the TransactionTemplate absolutely couples you to Spring's transaction infrastructure and APIs. Whether or not programmatic transaction management is suitable for your development needs is a decision that you will have to make yourself.

Application code that must execute in a transactional context, and that will use the TransactionTemplate explicitly, looks like this. You, as an application developer, will write a TransactionCallback implementation (typically expressed as an anonymous inner class) that will contain all of the code that you need to have execute in the context of a transaction. You will then pass an instance of your custom TransactionCallback to the execute(..) method exposed on the TransactionTemplate.

public class SimpleService implements Service {

  // single TransactionTemplate shared amongst all methods in this instance
  private final TransactionTemplate transactionTemplate;

  // use constructor-injection to supply the PlatformTransactionManager
  public SimpleService(PlatformTransactionManager transactionManager) {
    Assert.notNull(transactionManager, "The 'transactionManager' argument must not be null.");
    this.transactionTemplate = new TransactionTemplate(transactionManager);
  }

  public Object someServiceMethod() {
    return transactionTemplate.execute(new TransactionCallback() {

      // the code in this method executes in a transactional context
      public Object doInTransaction(TransactionStatus status) {
        updateOperation1();
        return resultOfUpdateOperation2();
      }
    });
  }
}

If there is no return value, use the convenient TransactionCallbackWithoutResult class via an anonymous class like so:

transactionTemplate.execute(new TransactionCallbackWithoutResult() {

  protected void doInTransactionWithoutResult(TransactionStatus status) {
    updateOperation1();
    updateOperation2();
  }
});

Code within the callback can roll the transaction back by calling the setRollbackOnly() method on the supplied TransactionStatus object.

transactionTemplate.execute(new TransactionCallbackWithoutResult() {

  protected void doInTransactionWithoutResult(TransactionStatus status) {
    try {
      updateOperation1();
      updateOperation2();
    } catch (SomeBusinessExeption ex) {
      status.setRollbackOnly();
    }
  }
});

public class SimpleService implements Service {

  private final TransactionTemplate transactionTemplate;

  public SimpleService(PlatformTransactionManager transactionManager) {
    Assert.notNull(transactionManager, "The 'transactionManager' argument must not be null.");
    this.transactionTemplate = new TransactionTemplate(transactionManager);

    // the transaction settings can be set here explicitly if so desired
    this.transactionTemplate.setIsolationLevel(TransactionDefinition.ISOLATION_READ_UNCOMMITTED);
    this.transactionTemplate.setTimeout(30); // 30 seconds
    // and so forth...
  }
}

<bean id="sharedTransactionTemplate"
    class="org.springframework.transaction.support.TransactionTemplate">
  <property name="isolationLevelName" value="ISOLATION_READ_UNCOMMITTED"/>
  <property name="timeout" value="30"/>
</bean>"

Finally, instances of the TransactionTemplate class are threadsafe, in that instances do not maintain any conversational state. TransactionTemplate instances do however maintain configuration state, so while a number of classes may choose to share a single instance of a TransactionTemplate, if a class needed to use a TransactionTemplate with different settings (for example, a different isolation level), then two distinct TransactionTemplate instances would need to be created and used.

You can also use the org.springframework.transaction.PlatformTransactionManager directly to manage your transaction. Simply pass the implementation of the PlatformTransactionManager you're using to your bean via a bean reference. Then, using the TransactionDefinition and TransactionStatus objects you can initiate transactions, rollback and commit.

DefaultTransactionDefinition def = new DefaultTransactionDefinition();
// explicitly setting the transaction name is something that can only be done programmatically
def.setName("SomeTxName");
def.setPropagationBehavior(TransactionDefinition.PROPAGATION_REQUIRED);

TransactionStatus status = txManager.getTransaction(def);
try {
  // execute your business logic here
}
catch (MyException ex) {
  txManager.rollback(status);
  throw ex;
}
txManager.commit(status);

On WebSphere 6.0 and above, the recommended Spring JTA transaction manager to use is WebSphereUowTransactionManager. This special adapter leverages IBM's UOWManager API which is available in WebSphere Application Server 6.0.2.19 or above and 6.1.0.9 or above. With this adapter, Spring-driven transaction suspension (suspend/resume as initiated by PROPAGATION_REQUIRES_NEW) is officially supported by IBM!

In a WebSphere 5.1 environment, you may wish to use Spring's WebSphereTransactionManagerFactoryBean class. This is a factory bean which retrieves the JTA TransactionManager in a WebSphere environment, which is done via WebSphere's static access methods. Once the JTA TransactionManager instance has been obtained via this factory bean, Spring's JtaTransactionManager may be configured with a reference to it, for enhanced transaction semantics over the use of only the JTA UserTransaction object. Please see the Javadocs for full details.

Note that WebSphereTransactionManagerFactoryBean usage is known to work on WAS 5.1 and 6.0 but is not officially supported by IBM. Prefer WebSphereUowTransactionManager when running on WAS 6.0 or higher (see above).

On WebLogic 8.1 or above, you will generally prefer to use the WebLogicJtaTransactionManager instead of the stock JtaTransactionManager class. This special WebLogic-specific subclass of the normal JtaTransactionManager supports the full power of Spring's transaction definitions in a WebLogic-managed transaction environment, beyond standard JTA semantics: Features include transaction names, per-transaction isolation levels, and proper resuming of transactions in all cases.

Spring ships a special adapter class for OC4J 10.1.3 or above: OC4JJtaTransactionManager. This is analogous to the WebLogicJtaTransactionManager class discussed in the previous section, providing similar value-adds on OC4J: transaction names and per-transaction isolation levels.

Note that the full JTA functionality, including transaction suspension, works fine with Spring's JtaTransactionManager on OC4J as well. The special OC4JJtaTransactionManager adapter simply provides value-adds beyond standard JTA.

You should take care to use the correct PlatformTransactionManager implementation for their requirements. Used properly, the Spring Framework merely provides a straightforward and portable abstraction. If you are using global transactions, you must use the org.springframework.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionManager class (or an application server-specific subclass of it) for all your transactional operations. Otherwise the transaction infrastructure will attempt to perform local transactions on resources such as container DataSource instances. Such local transactions do not make sense, and a good application server will treat them as errors.