Spring – why does transaction roll back on RuntimeException but not SQLException

springtransactions

I have a Spring-managed service method to manage database inserts. It contains multiple insert statements.

@Transactional
public void insertObservation(ObservationWithData ob) throws SQLException 
{
    observationDao.insertObservation(ob.getObservation());
            // aop pointcut inserted here in unit test
    dataDao.insertData(ob.getData());
}

I have two unit tests which throw an exception before calling the second insert. If the exception is a RuntimeException, the transaction is rolled back. If the exception is a SQLException, the first insert is persisted.

I'm baffled. Can anyone tell me why the transaction does not roll back on a SQLException? Can anyone offer a suggestion how to manage this? I could catch the SQLException and throw a RuntimeException, but that just seems weird.

Best Answer

This is defined behaviour. From the docs:

Any RuntimeException triggers rollback, and any checked Exception does not.

This is common behaviour across all Spring transaction APIs. By default, if a RuntimeException is thrown from within the transactional code, the transaction will be rolled back. If a checked exception (i.e. not a RuntimeException) is thrown, then the transaction will not be rolled back.

The rationale behind this is that RuntimeException classes are generally taken by Spring to denote unrecoverable error conditions.

This behaviour can be changed from the default, if you wish to do so, but how to do this depends on how you use the Spring API, and how you set up your transaction manager.

Related Solutions

C# – TransactionScope not rolling back transaction

I have also run into a similar issue. My problem occurred because the SqlConnection I used in my SqlCommands was already open before the TransactionScope was created, so it never got enlisted in the TransactionScope as a transaction.

Is it possible that the SqlHelper class is reusing an instance of SqlConnection that is open before you enter your TransactionScope block?

Java – How to prevent JPA from rolling back transaction

Managed to create a test case for this problem:

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(locations={"file:web/WEB-INF/spring/applicationContext.xml",
        "file:web/WEB-INF/spring/services.xml"})
@Transactional
public class DoNotRollBackTest {
    @Autowired FakeService fakeService;

    @Test
    @Rollback(false)
    public void testRunXFireException() {
        fakeService.doSomeTransactionalStuff();
    }
}

FakeService:

@Service
public class FakeService {
    @Autowired private EcomService ecomService;
    @Autowired private WebService webService;

    @Transactional(noRollbackFor={XFireRuntimeException.class})
    public void doSomeTransactionalStuff() {
        Order order = ecomService.findOrderById(459);

        try {
            webService.letsThrowAnException();
        } catch (XFireRuntimeException e) {
            System.err.println("Caugh XFireRuntimeException:" + e.getMessage());
        }

        order.setBookingType(BookingType.CAR_BOOKING);
        ecomService.persist(order);
    }
}

WebService:

@Transactional(readOnly = true)
public class WebService {
    public void letsThrowAnException() {
        throw new XFireRuntimeException("test!");
    }
}

This will recreate the rollback-exception.

Then I realized that the transaction is probably being marked as rollbackOnly in WebService.letsThrowAnException since WebService is also transactional. I moved to annotation:

@Transactional(noRollbackFor={XFireRuntimeException.class})
    public void letsThrowAnException() {

Now the transaction isn't being rolled back and I can commit the changes to Order.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – TransactionScope not rolling back transaction

Java – How to prevent JPA from rolling back transaction

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