Hi!

According to the that comment below, it is not possible to work with relation sets, if the calling method ist executed with tx = null.

The getIdList() requires a tx or else the setHandle is always null -> which means that JBOSS (4.0.2) does not allow something like person.getRelatives().iterator() if the tx is null.

Can someone confirm this?

public class RelationSet implements Set {
 private JDBCCMRFieldBridge cmrField;
 private EntityEnterpriseContext ctx;
 private List[] setHandle;
 private Class relatedLocalInterface;

 //
 // Most of this class is a boring wrapper arround the id set.
 // The only interesting hitch is the setHandle. This class doesn't
 // have a direct referance to the related id set, it has a referance
 // to a referance to the set. When the transaction is completed the
 // CMR field sets my referance to the set to null, so that I know that
 // this set is no longer valid. See the ejb spec for more info.
 //

 public RelationSet(
 JDBCCMRFieldBridge cmrField,
 EntityEnterpriseContext ctx,
 List[] setHandle) {

 this.cmrField = cmrField;
 this.ctx = ctx;
 this.setHandle = setHandle;
 relatedLocalInterface = cmrField.getRelatedLocalInterface();
 }

 private List getIdList() {
 if(setHandle[0] == null) {
 throw new IllegalStateException("A CMR collection may only be used " +
 "within the transction in which it was created");
 }

Source:
http://www.cenqua.com/clover/eg/jboss/report/org/jboss/ejb/plugins/cmp/jdbc/bridge/RelationSet.html

--
Alex