Migrating from txProxyTemplate to <aop:config>

[mraible]

I'm trying to migrate from the old 1.2.x style to the 2.0 XSD style. Here's what I have in 1.2.8:

   
    <!-- Transaction template for Managers, from:
         http://blog.exis.com/colin/archives/2004/07/31/concise-transaction-definitions-spring-11/ -->
    <bean id="txProxyTemplate" abstract="true"
        class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionProxyFactoryBean">
        <property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>
        <property name="transactionAttributes">
            <props>
                <prop key="save*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
                <prop key="remove*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
                <prop key="*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,readOnly</prop>
            </props>
        </property>
    </bean>

    <!-- Generic manager that can be used to do basic CRUD operations on any objects -->
    <bean id="manager" parent="txProxyTemplate">
        <property name="target">
            <bean class="org.appfuse.service.impl.BaseManager">
                <property name="dao" ref="dao"/>
            </bean>
        </property>
    </bean>
    
    <!-- Transaction declarations for business services.  To apply a generic transaction proxy to
         all managers, you might look into using the BeanNameAutoProxyCreator -->
    <bean id="userManager" parent="txProxyTemplate">
        <property name="target">
            <bean class="org.appfuse.service.impl.UserManagerImpl">
                <property name="userDao" ref="userDao"/>
            </bean>
        </property>
        <!-- Override default transaction attributes b/c of UserExistsException -->
        <property name="transactionAttributes">
            <props>
                <prop key="save*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,-UserExistsException</prop>
                <prop key="remove*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
                <prop key="*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,readOnly</prop>
            </props>
        </property>
        <!-- This property is overriden in applicationContext-security.xml to add
             method-level role security -->
        <property name="preInterceptors">
            <list>
                <ref bean="userSecurityInterceptor"/>
            </list>
        </property>
    </bean>

    <!-- This interceptor insures that that users can only update themselves, not other users -->
    <bean id="userSecurityInterceptor" class="org.springframework.aop.support.RegexpMethodPointcutAdvisor">
        <property name="advice" ref="userSecurityAdvice"/>
        <property name="patterns" value=".*saveUser"/>
    </bean>

    <bean id="userSecurityAdvice" class="org.appfuse.service.UserSecurityAdvice">
        <property name="userCache" ref="userCache"/>
    </bean>

Using 2.0, I'm guessing this same advice is applied using the following:

<aop:config>
        <aop:advisor id="serviceMethods" pointcut="execution(* *.service.*Manager.*(..))" advice-ref="txAdvice"/>
        <aop:advisor id="userManagerMethods" pointcut="execution(* *.service.UserManager.*(..))"
                     advice-ref="userManagerTxAdvice"/>
        <aop:advisor id="userManagerSecurity" pointcut="execution(* *.service.UserManager.saveUser(..))"
                     advice-ref="userSecurityAdvice"/>
    </aop:config>

    <tx:advice id="txAdvice">
        <tx:attributes>
            <tx:method name="*"/>
        </tx:attributes>
    </tx:advice>

    <tx:advice id="userManagerTxAdvice">
        <tx:attributes>
            <tx:method name="save*" rollback-for="UserExistsException"/>
            <tx:method name="remove*"/>
            <tx:method name="*" read-only="true"/>
        </tx:attributes>
    </tx:advice>

    <!-- Generic manager that can be used to do basic CRUD operations on any objects -->
    <bean id="manager" class="org.appfuse.service.impl.BaseManager">
        <property name="dao" ref="dao"/>
    </bean>

    <bean id="userManager" class="org.appfuse.service.impl.UserManagerImpl">
        <property name="userDao" ref="userDao"/>
    </bean>

    <bean id="userSecurityAdvice" class="org.appfuse.service.UserSecurityAdvice">
        <property name="userCache" ref="userCache"/>
    </bean>

I'd like to say this works, but it doesn't. I get tests that fail because I'm calling save() in a read-only transaction. I'm using Spring 2.0-rc1. I tried using rc2 (the latest version in ibiblio) and everything blows up when initializing.

I thought removing the read-only flag from userManagerTxAdvice would work, but no dice, the issue still happens.

    <tx:advice id="userManagerTxAdvice">
        <tx:attributes>
            <tx:method name="save*" rollback-for="UserExistsException"/>
            <tx:method name="remove*"/>
            <tx:method name="*"/>
        </tx:attributes>
    </tx:advice>

Stack trace:

[INFO] [talledLocalContainer] Caused by: javax.faces.el.EvaluationException: Exception while invokin
g expression #{signupForm.save}
[INFO] [talledLocalContainer]   at org.apache.myfaces.el.MethodBindingImpl.invoke(MethodBindingImpl.
java:153)
[INFO] [talledLocalContainer]   at org.apache.myfaces.application.ActionListenerImpl.processAction(A
ctionListenerImpl.java:63)
[INFO] [talledLocalContainer]   ... 78 more
[INFO] [talledLocalContainer] Caused by: org.springframework.dao.InvalidDataAccessApiUsageException:
 Write operations are not allowed in read-only mode (FlushMode.NEVER) - turn your Session into Flush
Mode.AUTO or remove 'readOnly' marker from transaction definition
[INFO] [talledLocalContainer]   at org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.HibernateTemplate.checkWriteOp
erationAllowed(HibernateTemplate.java:1082)

[dsklyut]

It might not be this simple but, have you tried changing your pointcuts to something a little more specific? It looks like all three pointcuts would match UserManager.saveUser joinpoint.

<aop:config>
        <aop:advisor id="serviceMethods" pointcut="execution(* *.service.*Manager.*(..)) and !within(*.service.UserManager)" advice-ref="txAdvice"/>
        <aop:advisor id="userManagerMethods" pointcut="within(*.service.UserManager)"
                     advice-ref="userManagerTxAdvice" order="2"/>
        <aop:advisor id="userManagerSecurity" pointcut="execution(* *.service.UserManager.saveUser(..))"
                     advice-ref="userSecurityAdvice" order="1"/>
    </aop:config>

I hope this works.

[mraible]

As far as I can tell, it appears that AspectJ's pointcut language does not support using wildcards (*) for package names. The following seems to work:

    <aop:config>
        <aop:advisor id="managerTx" advice-ref="txAdvice" pointcut="execution(* org.appfuse.service.*Manager.*(..))"/>
        <aop:advisor id="userManagerTx" advice-ref="userManagerTxAdvice" pointcut="within(org.appfuse.service.UserManager)"/>
        <aop:advisor id="userManagerSecurity" advice-ref="userSecurityAdvice" pointcut="execution(* org.appfuse.service.UserManager.saveUser(..))"/>
    </aop:config>

It'd be nice to figure out a way to make the "managerTx" advisor more generic so applications that use AppFuse could have this advice applied even when classes are in a different package than org.appfuse.service.

[dsklyut]

Try this:
http://www.eclipse.org/aspectj/doc/n...ePatterns.html

I think "*" is for characters and ".." is for packages/sub-packages.

Maybe an expression like this:

execution(* *..*Manager.*(..))"

Don't have a way to test it right now.

Another way is to define a named pointcut outside the advisor and reference it with pointcut-ref. In that case you can choose a type of pointcut - aspectj or regex.

Something like this:

<aop:config>
  <aop:pointcut id="test" type="regex"  expression="*.UserManager.saveUser"/>
</aop:config>

This way you should be able to use 1.2 style regex poincut expression vs. AspectJ.

Dmitry

[mraible]

I tried the following, but no luck:

    <aop:config>
        <aop:pointcut id="serviceMethodsPointcut" type="regex" expression="*Manager.*"/>
        <aop:advisor id="userManagerTx" advice-ref="userManagerTxAdvice" pointcut="execution(* org.appfuse.service.UserManager.*(..))" order="0"/>        
        <aop:advisor id="userManagerSecurity" advice-ref="userSecurityAdvice" pointcut="execution(* org.appfuse.service.UserManager.saveUser(..))" order="1"/>
        <aop:advisor advice-ref="txAdvice" pointcut-ref="serviceMethodsPointcut" order="2"/>    
    </aop:config>

But this results in:

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Pointcut is not well-formed: expecting 'identifier' at character position 0
*Manager.*
^

The following works, but is missing the benefit of wrapping transactions around any beans with service.*Manager in their package/class name.

    <aop:config>
        <aop:advisor id="userManagerTx" advice-ref="userManagerTxAdvice" pointcut="execution(* org.appfuse.service.UserManager.*(..))" order="0"/>        
        <aop:advisor id="userManagerSecurity" advice-ref="userSecurityAdvice" pointcut="execution(* org.appfuse.service.UserManager.saveUser(..))" order="1"/>
        <aop:advisor id="managerTx" advice-ref="txAdvice" pointcut="execution(* org.appfuse.service..*Manager.*(..))" order="2"/>
    </aop:config>

[ramnivas]

Dmitry's suggestion of execution(* *..*Manager.*(..)) should really work.

Can you try the following:

<aop:config>
    <aop:pointcut id="serviceMethodsPointcut" expression="execution(* *..*Manager.*(..))"/>
    <aop:advisor id="userManagerTx" advice-ref="userManagerTxAdvice" pointcut="execution(* org.appfuse.service.UserManager.*(..))" order="0"/>        
    <aop:advisor id="userManagerSecurity" advice-ref="userSecurityAdvice" pointcut="execution(* org.appfuse.service.UserManager.saveUser(..))" order="1"/>
    <aop:advisor advice-ref="txAdvice" pointcut-ref="serviceMethodsPointcut" order="2"/>    
</aop:config>

-Ramnivas

[mraible]

If I use:

<aop:pointcut id="serviceMethodsPointcut" expression="execution(* *..*Manager.*(..))"/>

It results in:

[applicationContext-service.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is 
org.springframework.transaction.CannotCreateTransactionException: Could not open Hibernate Session for transaction; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException
Caused by: org.springframework.transaction.CannotCreateTransactionException: Could not open Hibernate Session for transaction; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
	at org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.HibernateTransactionManager.doBegin(HibernateTransactionManager.java:431)

Obviously, the pointcut express is too broad. If I change it to:

expression="execution(* *.service..*Manager.*(..))"

... it works great - thanks!

[ramnivas]

You're welcome.

You probably need the following modification to your pointcut (simply move the '..' portion) Since it is working for you, I suspect you already have this or a similar change.

expression="execution(* *..service.*Manager.*(..))"

to select the service.*Manager type regardless of the parent package structure.

-Ramnivas