Java – Question about Spring transaction propagation

From Spring Documentation:

The @Repository annotation is a marker for any class that fulfils the role or stereotype of a repository (also known as Data Access Object or DAO). Among the uses of this marker is the automatic translation of exceptions, as described in Exception Translation.

Spring provides further stereotype annotations: @Component, @Service, and @Controller. @Component is a generic stereotype for any Spring-managed component. @Repository, @Service, and @Controller are specializations of @Component for more specific use cases (in the persistence, service, and presentation layers, respectively). Therefore, you can annotate your component classes with @Component, but, by annotating them with @Repository, @Service, or @Controller instead, your classes are more properly suited for processing by tools or associating with aspects.

For example, these stereotype annotations make ideal targets for pointcuts. @Repository, @Service, and @Controller can also carry additional semantics in future releases of the Spring Framework. Thus, if you are choosing between using @Component or @Service for your service layer, @Service is clearly the better choice. Similarly, as stated earlier, @Repository is already supported as a marker for automatic exception translation in your persistence layer.

Good question, although not a trivial one to answer.

Propagation

Defines how transactions relate to each other. Common options:

• REQUIRED: Code will always run in a transaction. Creates a new transaction or reuses one if available.
• REQUIRES_NEW: Code will always run in a new transaction. Suspends the current transaction if one exists.

The default value for @Transactional is REQUIRED, and this is often what you want.

Isolation

Defines the data contract between transactions.

• ISOLATION_READ_UNCOMMITTED: Allows dirty reads.
• ISOLATION_READ_COMMITTED: Does not allow dirty reads.
• ISOLATION_REPEATABLE_READ: If a row is read twice in the same transaction, the result will always be the same.
• ISOLATION_SERIALIZABLE: Performs all transactions in a sequence.

The different levels have different performance characteristics in a multi-threaded application. I think if you understand the dirty reads concept you will be able to select a good option.

Defaults may vary between difference databases. As an example, for MariaDB it is REPEATABLE READ.

Example of when a dirty read can occur:

  thread 1   thread 2      
      |         |
    write(x)    |
      |         |
      |        read(x)
      |         |
    rollback    |
      v         v 
           value (x) is now dirty (incorrect)

So a sane default (if such can be claimed) could be ISOLATION_READ_COMMITTED, which only lets you read values which have already been committed by other running transactions, in combination with a propagation level of REQUIRED. Then you can work from there if your application has other needs.

A practical example of where a new transaction will always be created when entering the provideService routine and completed when leaving:

public class FooService {
    private Repository repo1;
    private Repository repo2;

    @Transactional(propagation=Propagation.REQUIRES_NEW)
    public void provideService() {
        repo1.retrieveFoo();
        repo2.retrieveFoo();
    }
}

Had we instead used REQUIRED, the transaction would remain open if the transaction was already open when entering the routine. Note also that the result of a rollback could be different as several executions could take part in the same transaction.

We can easily verify the behaviour with a test and see how results differ with propagation levels:

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(locations="classpath:/fooService.xml")
public class FooServiceTests {

    private @Autowired TransactionManager transactionManager;
    private @Autowired FooService fooService;

    @Test
    public void testProvideService() {
        TransactionStatus status = transactionManager.getTransaction(new DefaultTransactionDefinition());
        fooService.provideService();
        transactionManager.rollback(status);
        // assert repository values are unchanged ... 
}

With a propagation level of

• REQUIRES_NEW: we would expect fooService.provideService() was NOT rolled back since it created it's own sub-transaction.

• REQUIRED: we would expect everything was rolled back and the backing store was unchanged.