How to inject multiple JPA EntityManager (persistence units) when using Spring

Question

I need to use one database for queries (non-modifying) and one for commands (modifying). I am using Spring Data JPA, so I have two configuration classes:

@Configuration
@EnableJpaRepositories(value = "com.company.read",
        entityManagerFactoryRef = "readingEntityManagerFactory",
        transactionManagerRef = "readingTransactionManager")
@EnableTransactionManagement
public class SpringDataJpaReadingConfiguration {

    @Bean(name = "readingEntityManagerFactory")
    public EntityManagerFactory readingEntityManagerFactory() {
        return Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("persistence.reading");
    }

    @Bean(name = "readingExceptionTranslator")
    public HibernateExceptionTranslator readingHibernateExceptionTranslator() {
        return new HibernateExceptionTranslator();
    }

    @Bean(name = "readingTransactionManager")
    public JpaTransactionManager readingTransactionManager() {
        return new JpaTransactionManager();
    }

}

@Configuration
@EnableJpaRepositories(value = "com.company.write",
        entityManagerFactoryRef = "writingEntityManagerFactory",
        transactionManagerRef = "writingTransactionManager")
@EnableTransactionManagement
public class SpringDataJpaWritingConfiguration {

    @Bean(name = "writingEntityManagerFactory")
    public EntityManagerFactory writingEntityManagerFactory() {
        return Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("persistence.writing");
    }

    @Bean(name = "writingExceptionTranslator")
    public HibernateExceptionTranslator writingHibernateExceptionTranslator() {
        return new HibernateExceptionTranslator();
    }

    @Bean(name = "writingTransactionManager")
    public JpaTransactionManager writingTransactionManager() {
        return new JpaTransactionManager();
    }

}

In my repository I sometimes need to decide with EntityManager to use like so:

@Repository
public class UserReadingRepository {

    @PersistenceContext(unitName = "persistence.reading")
    private EntityManager em;

    // some useful queries here
}

I am using persistence unit's name as defined in my persistence.xml:

<persistence xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"
             xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
             xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd"
             version="2.0">

    <persistence-unit name="persistence.reading" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
        <provider>org.hibernate.jpa.HibernatePersistenceProvider</provider>
        <non-jta-data-source>ReadingDS</non-jta-data-source>
        <properties>
            <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect" />
            <property name="hibernate.show_sql" value="true" />
        </properties>
    </persistence-unit>

    <persistence-unit name="persistence.writing" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
        <provider>org.hibernate.jpa.HibernatePersistenceProvider</provider>
        <non-jta-data-source>WritingDS</non-jta-data-source>
        <properties>
            <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect" />
            <property name="hibernate.show_sql" value="true" />
        </properties>
    </persistence-unit>

</persistence>

Spring throws org.springframework.beans.factory.NoSuchBeanDefinitionException: No bean named 'persistence.reading' is defined. Oddly, it looks like Spring tries to instantiate a bean with persistence unit name? Did I misconfigure something?

UPDATE: When I remove unitName = "persistence.reading" from @PersistenceContext annotation, I will get following error instead: org.springframework.beans.factory.NoUniqueBeanDefinitionException: No qualifying bean of type [javax.persistence.EntityManagerFactory] is defined: expected single matching bean but found 2: readingEntityManagerFactory,writingEntityManagerFactory

UPDATE 2: Rohit suggested (in the comment) to wire EntityManagerFactory instead. So I tried to do the following:

@PersistenceUnit(unitName = "persistence.reading")
private EntityManagerFactory emf;

but Spring only reports: org.springframework.beans.factory.NoSuchBeanDefinitionException: No bean named 'persistence.reading' is defined

FINAL FIX: Thanks to Vlad's answer, I was able to update the code to use the following (just make sure you define your dataSource bean as well):

@Bean(name = "readingEntityManagerFactory")
public EntityManagerFactory readingEntityManagerFactory() {
    LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean em = new LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean();
    em.setPersistenceUnitName("persistence.reading");
    em.setDataSource(dataSource());
    em.setPackagesToScan("com.company");
    em.setJpaVendorAdapter(new HibernateJpaVendorAdapter());
    em.afterPropertiesSet();
    return em.getObject();
}

Why are you not setting entityManagerFactory property of transactionManager? And where is your persistence.xml file? — Rohit Jain
persistence.xml is on classpath inside META-INF. I tried to set entityManagerFactories on transactionManager beans, but the results are exactly same. — Xorty
FYI I am pretty sure that persistence.xml is visible, if I fall back to using just one entityManager then Spring successfully assembles all the beans. — Xorty
That is strange. I have also used multiple entityManagers in my application, though I followed Java based config approach. And it worked perfectly, with different persistence unit names. There should be no reason it wouldn't work for 2, if it works for 1. Or may be, there is very minute thing missing somewhere.. I've slight doubt with the name of PUs.. This might sound silly, but could you just replace . with -, in persistence.reading and persistence.writing? — Rohit Jain
heh I already thought of that and I changed persistence unit names but unfortunately no luck :-/ I updated the original question with another interesting error though — Xorty

Vlad Mihalcea Vlad Mihalcea · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-02T22:53:03

The EntityManageFactory is not properly configured. You should use a LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean instead:

@Bean(name = "readingEntityManagerFactory")
public EntityManagerFactory readingEntityManagerFactory() {
    LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean em = new LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean();
    em.setPersistenceUnitName("persistence.reading");
    em.setDataSource(dataSource());
    em.setPackagesToScan("com.company");
    em.setJpaVendorAdapter(new HibernateJpaVendorAdapter());
    em.afterPropertiesSet();
    return em.getObject();
}

Also the JpaTransactionManager is miss-configured too. It should be something like:

@Bean(name = "readingTransactionManager")
public PlatformTransactionManager readingTransactionManager(){
    JpaTransactionManager transactionManager = new JpaTransactionManager();
    transactionManager.setEntityManagerFactory(readingEntityManagerFactory());
    return transactionManager;
}

You need to do the same for both the reading and the writing EntityManager configurations.

How to inject multiple JPA EntityManager (persistence units) when using Spring

1 Answers