Question

I’m using Hibernate 4.0.1.Final to write a standalone Java app. When testing my data access layer, I’m getting the following exception

org.hibernate.HibernateException: createCriteria is not valid without
active transaction

when searching for an object. I’m trying to separate my transaction level code from my database operational code. My JUnit test is

@Before
public void setUpDAOTest() { 
    final Configuration configuration = new Configuration();
    configuration.configure().setProperty("hibernate.show_sql", "false");
    final ServiceRegistry serviceRegistry = new ServiceRegistryBuilder().applySettings(configuration.getProperties()).buildServiceRegistry();
    sessionFactory = configuration.buildSessionFactory(serviceRegistry);
    orgDao = new OrganizationDAOImpl(sessionFactory);
    session = sessionFactory.openSession();
    tx = session.beginTransaction();
}   // setUp

@Test
public void testFindStateByAbbrev() { 
    final String abbrev = testProps.getProperty("test.state.abbrev");
    final State state = orgDao.findStateByAbbrev(abbrev);
    Assert.assertNotNull(state);
    Assert.assertEquals(testProps.getProperty("test.state.abbrev"), state.getAbbrev());
}   // testFindStateByAbbrev

and the code the unit test invokes is …

public class OrganizationDAOImpl extends AbstractDAO implements OrganizationDAO {
    …
    public State findStateByAbbrev(final String abbrev) {
        State ret = null;
        final Session session = sessionFactory.getCurrentSession();
        final Criteria crit = session.createCriteria(State.class).add(Restrictions.eq("abbrev", abbrev));
        final List<State> results = crit.list();
        if (results != null && results.size() > 0) {
            ret = results.get(0);
        }   // if
        return ret;
    }

The exception is thrown in the DAO at the line,

final Criteria crit = session.createCriteria(State.class).add(Restrictions.eq("abbrev", abbrev));

How can I adjust my JUnit test (or my DAO code) to eliminate this exception and make my code run properly? Here’s my hibernate.cfg.xml file …

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD//EN" "http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">

<hibernate-configuration>
    <session-factory>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class">com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.url">jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/dbid</property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.username">user</property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.password">password</property>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.pool_size">10</property>
        <property name="show_sql">true</property>
        <property name="dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</property>

        <!-- Enable Hibernate's automatic session context management -->
            <property name="current_session_context_class">thread</property>

        <mapping class="org.myco.myproject.orgsclient.model.Organization" />
        <mapping class="org.myco.myproject.orgsclient.model.State" />

    </session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>

Answer 1

You can either move

session = sessionFactory.openSession();
tx = session.beginTransaction();

inside your DAO method or bind the new session to the current thread in the @Before method.

You have specified that hibernate should use the ThreadLocalSessionContext. However, there is nothing to bind a Session to the current thread.

ThreadLocalSessionContext provides a static bind(org.hibernate.Session session) method which you could use it ensure that sessionFactory.getCurrentSession() can access the session which you have opened.

Just opening a new session doesn’t bind it to the thread.