Local transaction containment (LTC)

A local transaction containment (LTC) is used to define the application server behavior in an unspecified transaction context.

(Unspecified transaction context is defined in the Enterprise JavaBeans 2.0 (or later) specification; for example, at http://java.sun.com/products/ejb/2.0.html.) Link outside Information Center

A LTC is a bounded unit-of-work scope within which zero, one, or more resource manager local transactions (RMLTs) can be accessed. The LTC defines the boundary at which all RMLTs must be complete; any incomplete RMLTs are resolved, according to policy, by the container. An LTC is local to a bean instance; it is not shared across beans even if those beans are managed by the same container. LTCs are started by the container before dispatching a method on a J2EE component (such as an enterprise bean or servlet) whenever the dispatch occurs in the absence of a global transaction context. LTCs are completed by the container depending on the application-configured LTC boundary; for example at the end of the method dispatch. There is no programmatic interface to the LTC support; rather LTCs are managed exclusively by the container and configured by the application deployer through transaction attributes in the application deployment descriptor. A local transaction containment cannot exist concurrently with a global transaction. If application component dispatch occurs in the absence of a global transaction, the container always establishes an LTC for J2EE components at J2EE 1.3 or later. The only exceptions to this are as follows:

Where application component dispatch occurs without container interposition; for example, for a stateless session bean create or a servlet-initiated thread.
J2EE 1.2 web components.
J2EE 1.2 BMT enterprise beans.

A local transaction containment can be scoped to an ActivitySession context that lives longer than the enterprise bean method in which it is started, as described in ActivitySessions and transaction contexts.

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