Spring: automatic rollback on checked exceptions

One way to configure Spring to rollback on a non RuntimeExceptions is using @Transactional(rollbackFor=...) annotation on the service classes. The problem with this approach is that we need to define (rollbackFor=…) for almost all the service classes which seems really redundant.

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My question: Is there any way to configure a default behaviour for Spring transaction manager to rollback on a non RuntimeException whenever it happens without declaring it on every @Transactional annotation. Something like using @ApplicationException(rollback=true) annotation on an exception class in EJB.

Answer

You can’t do it for application level with @Transactional , but you can :

variant 1 : extend @Transactional annotation and put it as default value for rollbackfor. But set rollbackFor unchecked exceptions only that you need .With this you can control rollbacks only for case that you sure , and avoid copy past of @Transactional(rollbackFor =MyCheckedException.class)

Like:

@Target({ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.TYPE})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Transactional(rollbackFor=MyCheckedException.class)
public @interface TransactionalWithRollback {
}

And use this annotation instead of standard @Transactional.

variant 2 : you can create extension from AnnotationTransactionAttributeSource and override method determineTransactionAttribute:

protected TransactionAttribute  determineTransactionAttribute(AnnotatedElement ae)
//Determine the transaction attribute for the given method or class.

TransactionAttribute see TransactionAttribute api , there is a method

boolean rollbackOn(Throwable ex) Should we roll back on the given exception?

protected TransactionAttribute determineTransactionAttribute(
    AnnotatedElement ae) {
    return new DelegatingTransactionAttribute(target) {
        @Override
        public boolean rollbackOn(Throwable ex) {
           return (check is exception type as you need for rollback );
       }
};

}

Second approach is not so good as first as you do it really global for transaction manager. Better use custom annotation as you can control it any apply only for methods/classes where you really need it. But if you need it in any case use second variant , it will be your default transnational behavior.