The Java EE 5 Tutorial

Synchronizing a Session Bean’s Instance Variables

The SessionSynchronization interface, which is optional, allows stateful session bean instances to receive transaction synchronization notifications. For example, you could synchronize the instance variables of an enterprise bean with their corresponding values in the database. The container invokes the SessionSynchronization methods (afterBegin, beforeCompletion, and afterCompletion) at each of the main stages of a transaction.

The afterBegin method informs the instance that a new transaction has begun. The container invokes afterBegin immediately before it invokes the business method.

The container invokes the beforeCompletion method after the business method has finished, but just before the transaction commits. The beforeCompletion method is the last opportunity for the session bean to roll back the transaction (by calling setRollbackOnly).

The afterCompletion method indicates that the transaction has completed. It has a single boolean parameter whose value is true if the transaction was committed and false if it was rolled back.