How to manually start a transaction on a shared EntityManager in Spring?

Question

I have a LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean as EntityManager instance.

To quickly drop a full tables' content, I want to run the following code:

@Service
public class DatabaseService {
    @Autowired
    private EntityManager em;

    @Transactional
    public void clear() {
        em.createNativeQuery("TRUNCATE TABLE MyTable").executeUpdate();
    }
}

Result:

ERROR org.springframework.integration.handler.LoggingHandler: javax.persistence.TransactionRequiredException: Executing an update/delete query
    at org.hibernate.jpa.spi.AbstractQueryImpl.executeUpdate(AbstractQueryImpl.java:71)
    at org.springframework.cglib.proxy.MethodProxy.invoke(MethodProxy.java:204)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.CglibAopProxy$CglibMethodInvocation.invokeJoinpoint(CglibAopProxy.java:708)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.ReflectiveMethodInvocation.proceed(ReflectiveMethodInvocation.java:157)
    at org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionInterceptor$1.proceedWithInvocation(TransactionInterceptor.java:98)
    at org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionAspectSupport.invokeWithinTransaction(TransactionAspectSupport.java:262)
    at org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionInterceptor.invoke(TransactionInterceptor.java:95)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.ReflectiveMethodInvocation.proceed(ReflectiveMethodInvocation.java:179)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.CglibAopProxy$DynamicAdvisedInterceptor.intercept(CglibAopProxy.java:644)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
    at org.springframework.scheduling.support.ScheduledMethodRunnable.run(ScheduledMethodRunnable.java:65)
    at org.springframework.scheduling.support.DelegatingErrorHandlingRunnable.run(DelegatingErrorHandlingRunnable.java:54)
    at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:471)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.runAndReset(FutureTask.java:304)
    at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$301(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:178)
    at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:293)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:744)

If I make this change:

public void clear() {
    em.getTransaction().begin();
    em.createNativeQuery("TRUNCATE TABLE MyTable").executeUpdate();
}

Result:

ERROR org.springframework.integration.handler.LoggingHandler: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Not allowed to create transaction on shared EntityManager - use Spring transactions or EJB CMT instead
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.SharedEntityManagerCreator$SharedEntityManagerInvocationHandler.invoke(SharedEntityManagerCreator.java:245)
    at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy84.getTransaction(Unknown Source)
    at org.springframework.cglib.proxy.MethodProxy.invoke(MethodProxy.java:204)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.CglibAopProxy$CglibMethodInvocation.invokeJoinpoint(CglibAopProxy.java:708)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.ReflectiveMethodInvocation.proceed(ReflectiveMethodInvocation.java:157)
    at org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionInterceptor$1.proceedWithInvocation(TransactionInterceptor.java:98)
    at org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionAspectSupport.invokeWithinTransaction(TransactionAspectSupport.java:262)
    at org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionInterceptor.invoke(TransactionInterceptor.java:95)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.ReflectiveMethodInvocation.proceed(ReflectiveMethodInvocation.java:179)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.CglibAopProxy$DynamicAdvisedInterceptor.intercept(CglibAopProxy.java:644)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
    at org.springframework.scheduling.support.ScheduledMethodRunnable.run(ScheduledMethodRunnable.java:65)
    at org.springframework.scheduling.support.DelegatingErrorHandlingRunnable.run(DelegatingErrorHandlingRunnable.java:54)
    at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:471)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.runAndReset(FutureTask.java:304)
    at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$301(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:178)
    at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:293)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:744)

I also tried spring-data-jpa, but also fails:

public interface MyRepository extends CrudRepository<MyEntity, Integer> {
    @Query(value = "TRUNCATE TABLE MyTable", nativeQuery = true)
    @Modifying
    public void clear();
}

So, how can I create a transaction and run the truncate in a shared spring context?

The Spring application is started using: SpringApplication.run(AppConfig.class, args); having:

@Bean
public JpaTransactionManager transactionManager() {
    return new JpaTransactionManager(emf);
}

Answer 1

You should use TransactionTemplate object to manage transaction imperatively:

transactionTemplate.execute(
    status -> em.createNativeQuery("TRUNCATE TABLE MyTable).executeUpdate());

To create TransactionTemplate just use injected PlatformTransactionManager:

transactionTemplate = new TransactionTemplate(platformTransactionManager);

And if you want to use new transaction just invoke

transactionTemplate.setPropagationBehavior(
    TransactionDefinition.PROPAGATION_REQUIRES_NEW);

Answer 2

As a workaround I now created a new EntityManager explicit using the EMF, and starting the transaction manually.

@Autowired
private EntityManagerFactory emf;

public void clearTable() {
    EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();
    EntityTransaction tx = em.getTransaction();
    tx.begin();
    em.createNativeQuery("TRUNCATE TABLE MyTable").executeUpdate();
    tx.commit();
    em.close();
}

That's probably not ideal, but works for the moment.

Answer 3

Spring Data JPA automatically runs CRUD method in transactions for you (without needing to set up anything except a transaction manager). If you want to use transactions for your query methods, you can simply add @Transactional to these:

interface MyRepository extends CrudRepository<MyEntity, Integer> {

  @Transactional
  @Modifying
  @Query(value = "TRUNCATE TABLE MyTable", nativeQuery = true)
  void clear();
}

On a more general note, what you have declared here is logically equivalent to CrudRepository.deleteAll(), except that it (your declaration) doesn't honor JPA-level cascades. So I wondered that's really what you intended to do. If you're using Spring Boot, the activation and transaction manager setup should be taken care of for you.

If you want to use @Transactional on the service level, you need to setup both a JpaTransactionManager and activate annotation based transaction management through either <tx:annotation-driven /> or @EnableTransactionManagement (looks like the activation was the missing piece on your attempt to create transactions on the service layer).