Transaction Behaviour

[jwray]

Hi,

I'm observing some strange transaction behaviour and cannot for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I've two methods, methodOne and methodTwo. Both have transaction attributes and methodTwo calls methodOne. It appears that the attributes on methodOne are ignored in this situation. Calling methodOne on its own appears fine.

Looking at the log traces there is a call,

DEBUG [org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.Transa ctionInterceptor] - Getting transaction for method 'methodTwo' in class [test.TransactionTestI]

but this never happens for methodOne, even though as I mentioned, methodOne is called by methodTwo.

Here is an application context from a very simple test situation I set up. In reality, I'm using source code annotations but see the same behaviour.

<bean id="transactionTestTarget" class="test.TransactionTest" />
	
	<bean id="transactionInterceptor" class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionInterceptor">
		
		<property name="transactionManager"><ref bean="transactionManager"/></property>
		<property name="transactionAttributeSource">
        	<value>
				test.TransactionTestI.methodOne=PROPAGATION_NEVER
				test.TransactionTestI.methodTwo=PROPAGATION_REQUIRED
			</value>
			
		</property>
	</bean>
	
	<bean id="transactionTest" class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">
		<property name="proxyInterfaces">
			<value>test.TransactionTestI</value>
		</property>
		<property name="target"><ref local="transactionTestTarget"/></property>
		<property name="interceptorNames">
			<list>
				<value>transactionInterceptor</value>
			</list>
		</property>
	</bean>

with the transactionManager being a HibernateTransactionManager, although this basic test does not access Hibernate.

The behaviour I'd expect in the above case of attributes is that an exception would be thrown when calling methodOne due to the PROPAGATION_NEVER. It isn't thrown.

Has anyone any ideas what maybe causing this problem, or am I wrong in my assumption about the behaviour of one transactioned method calling another?

Here's a log trace with pertinant logging turned on:

INFO [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.LocalSessionFactoryBean] - Building new Hibernate SessionFactory
 INFO [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager] - Using DataSource [org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource@f6f1b6] from Hibernate SessionFactory for HibernateTransactionManager
DEBUG [org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.MethodMapTransactionAttributeSource] - Adding transactional method [test.TransactionTestI.methodTwo] with attribute [PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,ISOLATION_DEFAULT]
 INFO [org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.MethodMapTransactionAttributeSource] - Adding transactional method [public abstract void test.TransactionTestI.methodTwo()] with attribute [PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,ISOLATION_DEFAULT]
DEBUG [org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.MethodMapTransactionAttributeSource] - Adding transactional method [test.TransactionTestI.methodOne] with attribute [PROPAGATION_NEVER,ISOLATION_DEFAULT]
 INFO [org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.MethodMapTransactionAttributeSource] - Adding transactional method [public abstract void test.TransactionTestI.methodOne()] with attribute [PROPAGATION_NEVER,ISOLATION_DEFAULT]
DEBUG [org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionInterceptor] - Getting transaction for method 'methodTwo' in class [test.TransactionTestI]
DEBUG [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager] - Using transaction object [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionObject@1582a7c]
DEBUG [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager] - Creating new transaction
DEBUG [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.SessionFactoryUtils] - Opening Hibernate session
DEBUG [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager] - Opened new session [net.sf.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl@a010ba] for Hibernate transaction
DEBUG [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager] - Beginning Hibernate transaction on session [net.sf.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl@a010ba]
DEBUG [org.springframework.transaction.support.TransactionSynchronizationManager] - Bound value [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.SessionHolder@149f041] for key [net.sf.hibernate.impl.SessionFactoryImpl@29d294] to thread [main]
DEBUG [org.springframework.transaction.support.TransactionSynchronizationManager] - Bound value [org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.ConnectionHolder@1984a9d] for key [org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource@f6f1b6] to thread [main]
DEBUG [org.springframework.transaction.support.TransactionSynchronizationManager] - Initializing transaction synchronization
DEBUG [test.TransactionTest] - In method two
DEBUG [test.TransactionTest] - In method one
DEBUG [org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionInterceptor] - Invoking commit for transaction on method 'methodTwo' in class [test.TransactionTestI]
DEBUG [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager] - Triggering beforeCommit synchronization
DEBUG [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager] - Triggering beforeCompletion synchronization
 INFO [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager] - Initiating transaction commit
DEBUG [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager] - Committing Hibernate transaction on session [net.sf.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl@a010ba]
DEBUG [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager] - Triggering afterCompletion synchronization
DEBUG [org.springframework.transaction.support.TransactionSynchronizationManager] - Clearing transaction synchronization
DEBUG [org.springframework.transaction.support.TransactionSynchronizationManager] - Removed value [org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.ConnectionHolder@1984a9d] for key [org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource@f6f1b6] from thread [main]
DEBUG [org.springframework.transaction.support.TransactionSynchronizationManager] - Removed value [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.SessionHolder@149f041] for key [net.sf.hibernate.impl.SessionFactoryImpl@29d294] from thread [main]
DEBUG [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager] - Closing Hibernate session [net.sf.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl@a010ba] after transaction
DEBUG [org.springframework.orm.hibernate.SessionFactoryUtils] - Closing Hibernate session

thanks

Jonny

[Rod Johnson]

This occurs because the call to the second method is from the target to the target, not the proxy. Hence it's not advised by default. You can set "exposeProxy" to true on your ProxyFactoryBean and do

((MyType) AopContext.currentProxy()).methodOne();

rather than simply call methodOne on this.

Rgds
Rod

[jwray]

Thanks Rod, someone else also cleared this up for me in another thread.

I'm wondering if this behaviour should be better documented? I realize, once it was pointed out to me, that this is expected behaviour based on the proxy implementation, but coming from the viewpoint of just using the AOP solution and not needing to know how they work, this isn't the expected behaviour.

Also, I've some AspectJ experience, which probably biased me into what I should be expecting (that the second method should also be advised).

thanks again,
Jonny

This occurs because the call to the second method is from the target to the target, not the proxy. Hence it's not advised by default. You can set "exposeProxy" to true on your ProxyFactoryBean and do

((MyType) AopContext.currentProxy()).methodOne();

rather than simply call methodOne on this.

Rgds
Rod