RollbackInterceptor and third party classes

[cpopetz]

I have a third-party class in a jar which I wrap as a component with <component> in components.xml.  That class is known to throw an unchecked exception in certain cases, which I want to catch and ignore, because the operation in question is optional.  But the RollbackInterceptor will mark the active transaction as rollbackOnly before I catch the exception.

I have two issues with this behavior:

• I can't annotate this third party class with @ApplicationException in order to prevent the rollback, and there is no way through xml to specify this behavior on the <component> element.

• Doesn't it make sense for RollbackInterceptor to only intercept components that are marked as @Transactional?  I think an exception in a component that isn't annotated @Transactional, even if a transaction is active, shouldn't abort the transaction unless it propagates out of a @Transactional component.

I'm interested in everyone's thoughts on this.

[matt.drees]

I think the ability to indicate an existing/third-party exception should be treated as an ApplicationException is important.

Seam is already doing this for Converter and Validator exceptions:

RollbackInterceptor.java:

   private boolean isSystemException(Exception e, boolean isJavaBean, Class<? extends Exception> clazz)
   {
      return isJavaBean && 
            (e instanceof RuntimeException) && 
            !clazz.isAnnotationPresent(APPLICATION_EXCEPTION) && 
            !clazz.isAnnotationPresent(ApplicationException.class) &&
            //TODO: this is hackish, maybe just turn off RollackInterceptor for @Converter/@Validator components
            !JSF.VALIDATOR_EXCEPTION.isInstance(e) &&
            !JSF.CONVERTER_EXCEPTION.isInstance(e);
   }

I think this should be generalized.

Maybe it could be folded into existing exception handling blocks in pages.xml:

    <exception class="javax.faces.ValidatorException" is-application-exception="true"/>

or

    <exception class="javax.faces.ValidatorException">
        <application-exception/>
    </exception>

Your second point seems reasonable to me, but I'm not experienced with transaction management.

[matt.drees]

Submited a jira: http://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBSEAM-2927