EJB.C.4 Changes Since 1.0

This sections lists the changes since EJB 1.0.

Specified the behavior of EJBObject.getPrimaryKey(), EJBMetaData.getPrimaryKeyClass(), EJBHome.remove(Object primaryKey) , and isIdentical(Object other) for session beans. As session beans do not have client-accessible primary keys, these operations result in exceptions.

Disallowed TX_BEAN_MANAGED for entity beans.

Disallowed use of SessionSynchronization for TX_BEAN_MANAGED sessions.

Allowed using java.lang.String as a primary key type.

Allowed deferring the specification of the primary key class for entities with container-managed persistence to the deployment time.

Clarified that a matching ejbPostCreate is required for each ejbCreate .

Added requirement for hashCode and equals for the primary key class.

Deprecated the package javax.ejb.deployment by replacing the JavaBeans-based deployment descriptor with an XML-based deployment descriptor.

Improved the information in the deployment descriptor by clearly separating structural information from application assembly information, and by removing support for information that should be supplied by the deployer rather than by the EJB JAR producer (i.e., ISV). The EJB 1.0 deployment descriptor mixed all this information together, making it hard for people to understand the division of responsibility for setting the various values, and it was not clear what values can be changed at application assembly and/or deployment.

Added the requirement for the bean provider to specify whether the enterprise bean uses a bean-managed or container-managed transaction.

Added Never the list of possible values of the transaction attributes to allow specification of the case in which an enterprise bean must never be called from a transactional client.

Removed the Appendix describing the javax.transaction package. Inclusion of this package in the EJB document is no longer needed because the JTA documentation is publicly available.

Tightened the specification of the responsibilities for transaction management.

Tighten the rules for the runtime environment that the bean provider can expect and the EJB container provider must provide. See Chapter EJB.18.