TransactionTemplate or @Transactional?

[David Pinn]

Should I be using TransactionTemplate directly, or using @Transactional, when accessing ActiveObjects in an add-on?

The ActiveObjects doco mentions @Transactional, but the Stash SSH plugin uses TransactionTemplate, and I can't remember why.

[TimP · Accepted solution]

Hi David,

From a plugin you should be using TransactionTemplate (imported from SAL). It will do all the necessary plumbing to ensure your DB operations are performed transactionally.

As you mentioned the SshKeyServiceImpl from the SSH plugin is a good example of how to use it.

cheers,

Tim

[David Pinn]

I suspected that was the case. So the approach described by the ActiveObjects doco is not right? It suggests using:

com.atlassian.activeobjects.external.TransactionalAnnotationProcessor

[TimP]

Actually digging into it a bit further looks like @Transactional would work too, though with slightly more overhead. Services marked with @Transactional will end up being wrapped in a dynamic proxy that uses TransactionTemplate (provided you have the right bean post-processors wired into your plugin), so either method is probably ok.

To be honest, I'd still be going with TransactionTemplate for the sake of simplicity and not tying yourself further to the AO library.

[David Pinn]

You make a good point about independence from the AO library. Thanks mate.