33.2. EJB Passivation and the ManagedEntityInterceptor

The persistence context is used to store entity instances (objects) that the persistence manager has loaded from the database. There is only ever one object per unique database record in a persistence context. It is often referred to as the first-level cache because it allows an application to avoid a call to the database when a record has been loaded into the persistence context.

Objects in the persistence context can be modified, and once modified they are considered dirty. Changes are tracked by the persistence manager, which then migrates these changes to the database when necessary. The persistence context, therefore, maintains a set of pending changes to the database.

Database-oriented applications capture transactional information that must be transferred into the database immediately. This information cannot always be captured in one screen, and the user may need to decide whether to accept or reject the pending changes.

These aspects of transactions have not necessarily been apparent from the user's perspective. The extended persistence context extends the user's understanding of transactions. It can hold changes for as long as the application requires, and then push these pending changes to the database via built-in persistence manager capabilities (EntityManager#flush()).

The persistence manager is linked to an entity instance via an object reference. Entity instances can be serialized, but the persistence manager cannot. Serialization can occur when either a stateful session bean or the HTTP Session is passivated. For the application to continue its activity, the relationship between the persistence manager and its entity instances must be maintained. MEI provides this support.