Using Spring defined transactionManager in JPA/Hibernate

Question

Suppose you use JPA with Spring, with Hibernate as JPA implementation. JPA transaction mode is "JTA", so you need to pass the container transactionManager to Hibernate. The classical answer is to set hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class to the matching class for your server.

However, I think it's a shame to have this depend of server specific configuration as you already found the transactionManager in Spring with <tx:jta-transaction-manager>.

Is there a way to give this transactionManager to Hibernate with a configuration like

 <bean id="entityManagerFactory"
  class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean">
  <property name="persistenceUnitName" value="persistence_unit_name"/>
  <property name="jpaVendorAdapter">
   <bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.HibernateJpaVendorAdapter"/>
  </property>
  <property name="jpaProperties">
   <props>
    <prop key="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class">
     org.hibernate.transaction.SunONETransactionManagerLookup
    </prop>
   </props>
  </property>
 </bean>

 <tx:jta-transaction-manager/>

The goal is to get rid of the org.hibernate.transaction.SunONETransactionManagerLookup property. By the way, I really have two different server implementations in mind.

EDIT : without the transaction manager configuration, Hibernate chokes when creating the EntityManagerFactory :

Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'entityManagerFactory' defined in URL [file:/C:/configuration/afoCuad-metier-ear/entitymanager-base-context.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is javax.persistence.PersistenceException: [PersistenceUnit: fr.tm.ima.cuad-afoCuad-metier-ejb-PU] Unable to build EntityManagerFactory
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1420)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:519)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:288)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:190)
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.findDefaultEntityManagerFactory(PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:529)
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.findEntityManagerFactory(PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:495)
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor$PersistenceElement.resolveEntityManager(PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:656)
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor$PersistenceElement.getResourceToInject(PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:629)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.InjectionMetadata$InjectedElement.inject(InjectionMetadata.java:147)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.InjectionMetadata.inject(InjectionMetadata.java:84)
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.postProcessPropertyValues(PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:338)
... 80 more
Caused by: javax.persistence.PersistenceException: [PersistenceUnit: fr.tm.ima.cuad-afoCuad-metier-ejb-PU] Unable to build EntityManagerFactory
at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.buildEntityManagerFactory(Ejb3Configuration.java:901)
at org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence.createContainerEntityManagerFactory(HibernatePersistence.java:74)
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.createNativeEntityManagerFactory(LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:225)
at org.springframework.orm.jpa.AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:308)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1477)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1417)
... 93 more
Caused by: org.hibernate.HibernateException: The chosen transaction strategy requires access to the JTA TransactionManager
at org.hibernate.impl.SessionFactoryImpl.<init>(SessionFactoryImpl.java:401)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1385)
at org.hibernate.cfg.AnnotationConfiguration.buildSessionFactory(AnnotationConfiguration.java:954)
at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.buildEntityManagerFactory(Ejb3Configuration.java:892)
... 98 more

Answer 1

First of all - do you really need JTA? Typically spring+hibernate don't require it. You can use a simple JpaTransactionManager / HibernateTransactionManager.

If you really want JTA, then you will need a JTA provider. If not running in an application server, check this question for how to use JTA in a servlet container. (Also take a look at this question)

Finally, hibernate docs specify that, for container-managed transactions:

Declarative transaction demarcation is a standard feature of EJB, also known as container-managed transactions (CMT). In EJB 2.x you would use XML deployment descriptors to create your transaction assembly. In EJB 3.x you can use JDK 5.0 annotation metadata directly in your source code, a much less verbose approach. To enable CMT transaction demarcation for EJBs in Hibernate configuration:

• set hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class to a lookup strategy for your JEE container
• set hibernate.transaction.factory_class to org.hibernate.transaction.CMTTransactionFactory

The second point is perhaps something you've missed?

What the documentation says in addition to that (the next section) is that if you want declarative transaction, hibernate is not where you should look at. You'd need to create an interceptor. That's exactly what spring transaction managers are. And that would be my choice given your technology stack (Spring).

If you wish not to rely on a single JTA provider, then make two builds. For example maven has "maven profiles", which allow to make builds for different environments.