Programmatic Transaction Management

The Spring Framework provides two means of programmatic transaction management, by using:

  • The TransactionTemplate.

  • A PlatformTransactionManager implementation directly.

The Spring team generally recommends the TransactionTemplate for programmatic transaction management. The second approach is similar to using the JTA UserTransaction API, although exception handling is less cumbersome.

Using the TransactionTemplate

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 transactional resources) and results in code that is intention driven, in that your code focuses solely on what you want to do.

As the examples that follow show, 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 have to make yourself.

Application code that must execute in a transactional context and that explicitly uses the TransactionTemplate resembles the next example. You, as an application developer, can write a TransactionCallback implementation (typically expressed as an anonymous inner class) that contains the code that you need to execute in the context of a transaction. You can then pass an instance of your custom TransactionCallback to the execute(..) method exposed on the TransactionTemplate. The following example shows how to do so:

Java
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) {
		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();
			}
		});
	}
}
Kotlin
// use constructor-injection to supply the PlatformTransactionManager
class SimpleService(transactionManager: PlatformTransactionManager) : Service {

	// single TransactionTemplate shared amongst all methods in this instance
	private val transactionTemplate = TransactionTemplate(transactionManager)

	fun someServiceMethod() = transactionTemplate.execute<Any?> {
		updateOperation1()
		resultOfUpdateOperation2()
	}
}

If there is no return value, you can use the convenient TransactionCallbackWithoutResult class with an anonymous class, as follows:

Java
transactionTemplate.execute(new TransactionCallbackWithoutResult() {
	protected void doInTransactionWithoutResult(TransactionStatus status) {
		updateOperation1();
		updateOperation2();
	}
});
Kotlin
transactionTemplate.execute(object : TransactionCallbackWithoutResult() {
	override fun doInTransactionWithoutResult(status: TransactionStatus) {
		updateOperation1()
		updateOperation2()
	}
})

Code within the callback can roll the transaction back by calling the setRollbackOnly() method on the supplied TransactionStatus object, as follows:

Java
transactionTemplate.execute(new TransactionCallbackWithoutResult() {

	protected void doInTransactionWithoutResult(TransactionStatus status) {
		try {
			updateOperation1();
			updateOperation2();
		} catch (SomeBusinessException ex) {
			status.setRollbackOnly();
		}
	}
});
Kotlin
transactionTemplate.execute(object : TransactionCallbackWithoutResult() {

	override fun doInTransactionWithoutResult(status: TransactionStatus) {
		try {
			updateOperation1()
			updateOperation2()
		} catch (ex: SomeBusinessException) {
			status.setRollbackOnly()
		}
	}
})
Specifying Transaction Settings

You can specify transaction settings (such as the propagation mode, the isolation level, the timeout, and so forth) on the TransactionTemplate either programmatically or in configuration. By default, TransactionTemplate instances have the default transactional settings. The following example shows the programmatic customization of the transactional settings for a specific TransactionTemplate:

Java
public class SimpleService implements Service {

	private final TransactionTemplate transactionTemplate;

	public SimpleService(PlatformTransactionManager transactionManager) {
		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...
	}
}
Kotlin
class SimpleService(transactionManager: PlatformTransactionManager) : Service {

	private val transactionTemplate = TransactionTemplate(transactionManager).apply {
		// the transaction settings can be set here explicitly if so desired
		isolationLevel = TransactionDefinition.ISOLATION_READ_UNCOMMITTED
		timeout = 30 // 30 seconds
		// and so forth...
	}
}

The following example defines a TransactionTemplate with some custom transactional settings by using Spring XML configuration:

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

You can then inject the sharedTransactionTemplate into as many services as are required.

Finally, instances of the TransactionTemplate class are thread-safe, in that instances do not maintain any conversational state. TransactionTemplate instances do, however, maintain configuration state. So, while a number of classes may share a single instance of a TransactionTemplate, if a class needs to use a TransactionTemplate with different settings (for example, a different isolation level), you need to create two distinct TransactionTemplate instances.

Using the PlatformTransactionManager

You can also use the org.springframework.transaction.PlatformTransactionManager directly to manage your transaction. To do so, pass the implementation of the PlatformTransactionManager you use to your bean through a bean reference. Then, by using the TransactionDefinition and TransactionStatus objects, you can initiate transactions, roll back, and commit. The following example shows how to do so:

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

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

txManager.commit(status)