RollbackException

RollbackException is a term used in Java to denote two related exception types that signal a transaction or operation has been rolled back and cannot be completed. It typically arises in the context of transaction management or persistence operations that rely on a rollback, whether due to explicit rollback requests, errors, or integrity violations detected during processing.

In the Java Transaction API (JTA), javax.transaction.RollbackException is a checked exception that indicates the current transaction has been rolled back and cannot be completed. It can be thrown by transaction management code when a rollback occurs after a begin call, or when a rollback is triggered by the transaction manager as part of error handling. Because it is checked, code that invokes transactional methods is generally obligated to declare or handle this exception.

In the Java Persistence API (JPA), the corresponding exception is javax.persistence.RollbackException, which is an unchecked exception (a subclass of PersistenceException, which in turn extends RuntimeException). This RollbackException is thrown to indicate that a persistence operation failed due to a transaction being rolled back, typically during commit or flush operations. It often wraps the underlying cause, such as a database constraint violation or another failure that prompted the rollback.

Key differences include the API context and the exception type: JTA RollbackException is checked and tied to explicit transaction control, while JPA RollbackException is unchecked and related to persistence context operations. Handling strategies vary accordingly, with common practices including transaction rollback handling in catch blocks for JTA and user-facing error reporting in JPA.

See also: javax.transaction.RollbackException, javax.persistence.RollbackException, PersistenceException, TransactionManager.