No transaction in transactional service called from @PostConstruct

[jbaruch]

Dear friends!
For some reason transaction doesn't start when transactional service method is called from @PostConstruct method.
Following are the context and the components:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans ...>

    <context:component-scan base-package="com.bla"/>

    <bean id="c3p0DataSource"
          class="com.mchange.v2.c3p0.ComboPooledDataSource"
          destroy-method="close">...</bean>

    <bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.HibernateTransactionManager">
        <property name="sessionFactory" ref="sessionFactory"/>
    </bean>

    <bean id="sessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.annotation.AnnotationSessionFactoryBean">
        <property name="dataSource" ref="c3p0DataSource"/>
        <property name="cacheProvider" ref="cacheProvider"/>
        <property name="hibernateProperties">
            <props>
                <prop key="hibernate.dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle10gDialect</prop>
            </props>
        </property>
        <property name="annotatedPackages">
            <list>...</list>
        </property>
    </bean>
</beans>

@Component
public class Bootstraper {

   @Autowired
    private HeatCacheService heatCacheService;

    @PostConstruct
    public void bootstrap() {
                heatCacheService.heatCache();
    }
}

@Service
@Transactional
public class HeatCacheService {

    @Autowired
    private HeatCacheDAO heatCacheDAO;


    @Transactional(readOnly = true)
    public void heatCache() {
        this.heatCacheDAO.heatCache();
    }
}

@Repository
public class HeatCacheDAO extends AbstractDAO {
  
    public void heatCache() {
        loadEntity(SomeEntity.class);
        ...
    }

    private void loadEntity(Class clazz) {
        Session session = sessionFactory.getCurrentSession();
        session.createCriteria(clazz).list();
    }
}

That's all, simple as that.
The exception I get is "No Hibernate Session bound to thread, and configuration does not allow creation of non-transactional one here", which means that no transaction exists when calling sessionFactory.getCurrentSession().
If I open the transaction manully (using TransactionTemplate in the @PostConstruct method) it works like charm, but I want to stay with declarative transactions as much as possible.

Thank you in advance.
Baruch.

[Marten Deinum]

In the @PostConstruct (as with the afterPropertiesSet from the InitializingBean interface) there is no way to ensure that all the post processing is already done, so (indeed) there can be no Transactions. The only way to ensure that that is working is by using a TransactionTemplate.

[jbaruch]

That doesn't sound good, actually. Isn't "afterPropertiesSet" means that the bean is fully configured and ready to fly?

[Marten Deinum]

No. It means that your bean is created and all the properties have been injected, it doesn't mean that all the other BeanPostProcessor already did their respective jobs.

[jbaruch]

So, how can I be sure that when my business logic kicks in (without @PostConstruct, new user request, for example), the BeanPostProcessors already did their respective jobs?

[Marten Deinum]

If the ApplicationContext is finished and your application is up and running everything happend. All the Bean(Factory)PostProcessors have done their respective jobs. It is/can only be an issue from within @PostConstruct methods.