Nhibernate Reading/Saving Session Pattern, what is the exact transaction behaviour? - c#

All,
This is the pattern used to read/write data using n-hibernate session:
using(var session = factory.OpenSession())
using(var tx = session.BeginTransaction())
{
// all the code that uses the session goes here
// use session to load and/or save entity
}
My question is:
When you start a transaction, it starts a database transaction on the connection but I don't see a corresponding commit statement, rather the using statement on tx will call tx.Dispose(). Looking at n-hibernate source (from AdoTransaction class that uses SqlTransaction object), the underlying transaction object is never commited but disposed as you can see below. So, are we to assume that SqlTransaction provider will call commit before disposing? Is that somewhere document for SqlClient provider for ado.net?
if (isDisposing)
{
if (trans != null)
{
trans.Dispose();
trans = null;
log.Debug("IDbTransaction disposed.");
}
if (IsActive && session != null)
{
// Assume we are rolled back
AfterTransactionCompletion(false);
}
}
Clearly, I am missing something since I could not locate the code that flushes the session when tx.Dispose() is called.

The idea there is that you are supposed to call CommitTransaction yourself as part of the using block, as when the garbage collector comes around to Dispose the object, there could be the case that the transaction itself threw an error, in that instance you don't want the Dispose to commit it, you just want to dispose it.

Related

How to know if transaction scope was successful or not

I need to know if my transaction scope was successful or not. As in if the records were able to be saved in the Database or not.
Note: I am having this scope in the Service layer, and I do not wish to include a Try-Catch block.
bool txExecuted;
using (var tx = new TransactionScope())
{
//code
// 1 SAVING RECORDS IN DB
// 2 SAVING RECORDS IN DB
tx.Complete();
txExecuted = true;
}
if (txExecuted ) {
// SAVED SUCCESSFULLY
} else {
// NOT SAVED. FAILED
}
The commented code will be doing updates, and will probably be implemented using ExecuteNonQuery() - this returns an int of the number of rows affected. Keep track of all the return values to know how many rows were affected.
The transaction as a whole will either succeed or experience an exception when it completes. If no exception is encountered, the transaction was successful. If an exception occurs, some part of the transaction failed; none of it took place
By considering these two facts (records affected count, transaction exception or no) you can know if the save worked and how many rows were affected
I didn't quite understand the purpose of txExecuted- if an exception occurs it will never be set and the if will never be considered. The only code that will thus run is the stuff inside if(true). I don't see how you can decide to not use a try/catch and hope to do anything useful with a system that is geared to throw an exception if something goes wrong; you saying you don't want to catch exceptions isn't going to stop them happening and affecting the control flow of your program
To be clear, calling the Complete() method is only an indication that all operations within the scope are completed successfully.
However, you should also note that calling this method does not
guarantee a commit of the transaction. It is merely a way of informing
the transaction manager of your status. After calling this method, you
can no longer access the ambient transaction via the Current property,
and trying to do so results in an exception being thrown.
The actual work of commit between the resources manager happens at the
End Using statement if the TransactionScope object created the
transaction.
Since you are using ADO.NET, ExecuteNonQuery will return the number of rows affected. You can do a database lookup after the commit and outside of the using block.
In my opinion, its a mistake not to have a try/catch. You want to catch the TransactionAbortedException log the exception.
try
{
using (var scope = new TransactionScope())
{
using (var conn = new SqlConnection("connection string"))
{
}
// The Complete method commits the transaction. If an exception has been thrown,
// Complete is not called and the transaction is rolled back.
scope.Complete();
}
}
catch (TransactionAbortedException ex)
{
// log
}

C# Rollback Outer TransactionScope Regardless of What Happens In Nested TransactionScopes

First of all, I have read this similar question: Nested/Child TransactionScope Rollback but the answer didn't provide a solution and our questions are slightly different.
Basically, I have a database integration test which uses a transaction scope (In actuality the scope is managed in setup/teardown in an abstract class)
[Test]
public void MyTest()
{
using(var outerScope = new TransactionScope())
{
Assert.True(_myService.MyMethod());
var values = _myService.AnotherMethod();
}
}
And MyService.MyMethod also uses a TransactionScope
public bool MyMethod()
{
using(var innerScope = new TransactionScope())
using(var con = conFact.GetOpenConnection())
{
var cmd = con.CreateCommand();
//set up and execute command
if (isCheck) scope.Complete();
return isCheck;
}
}
So in theory, MyMethod only commits its changes if isCheck is true, but regardless of whether that transaction commits or not, when the method is tested, it will be rolled back.
It works as expected unless isCheck is false, in which case I get the following exception: System.Transactions.TransactionException : The operation is not valid for the state of the transaction.
I think what happened here was that since innerScope used TransactionScopeOption.Required, it joined the transaction used in outerScope. Once innerScope gets disposed when isCheck is false, outerScope is also disposed (This is what I don't want to happen!) so when I try to get another connection after MyMethod has been called, the outerScope is already disposed.
Alternatively, if I specify TransactionOption.RequiresNew, I get this exception: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException : Timeout expired.
I have tried using a SqlTransaction with a specified savepoint, and different combinations of TransactionOption to no avail.
There is no such thing as nested transactions. You can nest scopes but all that the nested scopes do is attach the the already running transaction. You cannot treat an inner scope independently from the other scope (except of course with RequiresNew which simply creates an independent transaction).
The functionality that you want does not exist in System.Transactions.
Savepoints are the only way to create something that looks like nested transactions. But then again SQL Server is prone to kill your entire transaction for arbitrary reasons. It is unpredictable what errors roll back the statement and what errors roll back the transaction. (Yes, this makes no sense.)

TransactionScope not rolling back although no complete() is called

I'm using TransactionScope to rollback a transaction that fail
bool errorReported = false;
Action<ImportErrorLog> newErrorCallback = e =>
{
errorReported = true;
errorCallback(e);
};
using (var transaction = new TransactionScope())
{
foreach (ImportTaskDefinition task in taskDefinition)
{
loader.Load(streamFile, newErrorCallback, task.DestinationTable, ProcessingTaskId);
}
if (!errorReported)
transaction.Complete();
}
I'm sure there is no TransactionScope started ahead or after this code.
I'm using entity framework to insert in my DB.
Regardless the state of errorReported the transaction is never rolled back in case of error.
What am I missing ?
TransactionScope sets Transaction.Current. That's all it does. Anything that wants to be transacted must look at that property.
I believe EF does so each time the connection is opened for any reason. Probably, your connection is already open when the scope is installed.
Open the connection inside of the scope or enlist manually.
EF has another nasty "design decision": By default it opens a new connection for each query. That causes distributed transactions in a non-deterministic way. Be sure to avoid that.

TransactionScope TransactionInDoubtException in EntityFramework

The following code is part of my business layer:
public void IncrementHits(int ID)
{
using (var context = new MyEntities())
{
using (TransactionScope transaction = new TransactionScope())
{
Models.User userItem = context.User.First(x => x.IDUser == ID);
userItem.Hits++;
try
{
context.SaveChanges();
transaction.Complete();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
transaction.Dispose();
throw;
}
}
}
}
Sometimes (once or twice a week) I get a TransactionInDoubtException. Stacktrace:
at System.Transactions.TransactionStateInDoubt.EndCommit(InternalTransaction tx)
at System.Transactions.CommittableTransaction.Commit()
at System.Transactions.TransactionScope.InternalDispose()
at System.Transactions.TransactionScope.Dispose()
As far as I know, the default isolation level is serializable, so there should be no problem with this atomic operation. (Assuming there is no timeout occuring because of a write lock)
How can I fix my problem?
Use transaction.Rollback instead of transaction.Dispose
If you have a transaction in a pending state always rollback on exception.
msdn says "if the transaction manager loses contact with the subordinate participant after sending the Single-Phase Commit request but before receiving an outcome notification, it has no reliable mechanism for recovering the actual outcome of the transaction. Consequently, the transaction manager sends an In Doubt outcome to any applications or voters awaiting informational outcome notification"
Please look into these links
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc229955.aspx
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.transactions.ienlistmentnotification.indoubt(v=vs.85).aspx
Add finally block to dispose the transaction. And set some status = true if you commit the transactions.
Check same in finally block and if status is true then don't rollback otherwise rollback and dispose the transaction.
Would it behave properly if you moved your try/catch to include the using directive for the Transaction scope? The using directive should implicitly call Dispose for you (so doing it explicitly seems redundant) and then you can throw the exception. This is what I see implement in examples from MSDN:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.transactions.transactionscope.dispose(v=vs.110).aspx

Exception during transactions using EF's DbContext.ExecuteSqlCommand()

Using a try-catch structure i'm trying to figure what to do if an exception is caught in any point of the transaction. Below one sample of code:
try
{
DbContext.ExecuteSqlCommand("BEGIN TRANSACTION"); //Line 1
DBContext.ExecuteSqlCommand("Some Insertion/Deletion Goes Here"); //Line 2
DbContext.ExecuteSqlCommand("COMMIT"); //Line 3
}
catch(Exception)
{
}
If the expection was caught executing 'Line 1' nothing must be done besides alerting the error. If it was caught executing the second line i don't know if i need to try to rollback the transaction that was sucessfully opened and the same occurs in case something went wrong with the third line.
Should i just send a rollback anyway? Or send all the commands straight to the bank in a single method call?
Inside the try-catch there's a loop performing many transactions like the one in the sample (and i need lots of small transactions instead of just a big one so i can reuse the SQL's '_log' file properly and avoid it to grow unnecessarily).
If any of the transactions go wrong i'll just need to delete them all and inform what happen't, but i can't turn that into one big transaction and just use rollback otherwise it will make the log file grow up to 40GB.
Think this will help:
using (var ctx = new MyDbContext())
{
// begin a transaction in EF – note: this returns a DbContextTransaction object
// and will open the underlying database connection if necessary
using (var dbCtxTxn = ctx.Database.BeginTransaction())
{
try
{
// use DbContext as normal - query, update, call SaveChanges() etc. E.g.:
ctx.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(
#"UPDATE MyEntity SET Processed = ‘Done’ "
+ "WHERE LastUpdated < ‘2013-03-05T16:43:00’");
var myNewEntity = new MyEntity() { Text = #"My New Entity" };
ctx.MyEntities.Add(myNewEntity);
ctx.SaveChanges();
dbCtxTxn.Commit();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
dbCtxTxn.Rollback();
}
} // if DbContextTransaction opened the connection then it will close it here
}
taken from: https://entityframework.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Improved%20Transaction%20Support
Basically the idea of it is your transaction becomes part of the using block, and within that you have a try/catch with the actual sql. If anything fails within the try/catch, it will be rolled back
As of Entity Framework 6, ExecuteSqlCommand is wrapped with its own transaction as explained here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/data/dn456843.aspx
Unless you explicitly need to roll multiple sql commands into a single transaction, there is no need to explicitly begin a new transaction scope.
With respect to transaction log growth and assuming you are targeting Sql Server then setting the transaction log operation to simple will ensure the log gets recycled between checkpoints.
Obviously if the transaction log history is not being maintained across the entire import, there is no implicit mechanism to rollback all the data in case of failure. Keeping it simple, I would probably just add a 'created' datetime field to the table and delete from the table based on a filter to the created field if I needed to delete all rows in case of error.

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