5.2.3. Entity beans
Entity beans can function as a Seam component when bound to a context variable. Because entities have a persistent identity in addition to their contextual identity, entity instances are usually bound explicitly in Java code, rather than being instantiated implicitly by Seam.
Entity bean components do not support bijection or context demarcation. Nor does invocation of an entity bean trigger validation.
Entity beans are not usually used as JSF action listeners, but often function as backing beans to provide properties to JSF components for display or form submission. They are commonly used as a backing bean coupled with a stateless session bean action listener to implement create/update/delete-type functionality.
By default, entity beans are bound to the conversation context, and can never be bound to the stateless context.
Note
In a clustered environment, it is less efficient to bind an entity bean directly to a conversation (or session-scoped Seam context variable) than it is to refer to the entity bean with a stateful session bean. Not all Seam applications define entity beans as Seam components for this reason.
Seam entity bean components are instantiated with
Component.getInstance() or @In(create=true), or directly instantiated with the new operator.
