Transaction rolled back when system exception occurs.

Question

Hello,
I understand that when a exception occurs that extends RuntimeException or RemoteException, the current transaction is rolled back. Is that also the case when the system exception is caught and dealt with?
Julien Martin.

Answer 1

Hi Julien,
It depends whether the system exception was ever propagated back to the container. E.g. If the container-managed transaction only spans a single EJB business method and the exception is both thrown AND caught within that business method, then no, the container will not mark the tx for rollback.
However, take the case where EJBs A and B both have container-managed transactions and tx attribute TX_REQUIRED. If EJB A calls business method foo() on EJB B and foo() throws a system exception, the tx will be marked for rollback by B's container as part of the post-processing of foo(). When control returns to EJB A, the same tx is still active, but it has been marked for rollback. Even if EJB A "eats" the system exception and returns normally, it won't change the disposition of the transaction, so the tx will be rolled back by A's container.
--ken
Kenneth Saks
J2EE SDK Engineering
SUN Microsystems