Valid CDI scopes for Session (EJB) beans

CDI enriches the EJB specification (Session beans to be specific) by providing contextual life cycle management. Session beans are not ‘contextual’ instances in general.

If you are comfortable with CDI in general, the idea of ‘being contextual’ should be pretty clear.

Here are the valid permutations and combinations of EJB session beans and corresponding CDI scopes (Application, Session or Request)

• Stateless beans can only belong to the @Dependent scope i.e. you can either choose to use the @Dependent pseudo-scope explicitly or just flow with the @Stateless annotation in which case the CDI container will pretty much use @Dependent by default (convention).

	//This is valid
	@Stateless
	@Dependent
	public class EJB1 {
	@PostConstruct
	public void init(){
	System.out.println(EJB1.class.getName() + " constructed successfully on "+ new Date().toString());
	}
	}
	//This is NOT valid
	@Stateless
	@RequestScoped
	public class EJB1 {
	@PostConstruct
	public void init(){
	System.out.println(EJB1.class.getName() + " constructed successfully on "+ new Date().toString());
	}
	}
	//CDI container will complain
	Caused by: org.jboss.weld.exceptions.DefinitionException: WELD–000082: Scope interface javax.enterprise.context.RequestScoped is not allowed on stateless enterprise beans for class cdi.ejb.integration.EJB1. Only @Dependent is allowed on stateless session beans.
	at org.jboss.weld.bean.SessionBean.checkScopeAllowed(SessionBean.java:122)
	at org.jboss.weld.bean.SessionBean.internalInitialize(SessionBean.java:101)
	at org.jboss.weld.bean.RIBean.initialize(RIBean.java:66)
	at org.jboss.weld.bootstrap.ConcurrentBeanDeployer$5.doWork(ConcurrentBeanDeployer.java:118)
	at org.jboss.weld.bootstrap.ConcurrentBeanDeployer$5.doWork(ConcurrentBeanDeployer.java:115)
	at org.jboss.weld.executor.IterativeWorkerTaskFactory$1.call(IterativeWorkerTaskFactory.java:59)
	at org.jboss.weld.executor.IterativeWorkerTaskFactory$1.call(IterativeWorkerTaskFactory.java:52)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266) [rt.jar:1.8.0_25]
	… 3 more

view raw

EJB1.java

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The CDI container will not let you get away with any other annotation and the end result would be a deployment failure

• With Singleton beans, @ApplicationScoped is the only valid CDI scope (@Dependent is the default in case you do not use any other explicit CDI scope)

	//This is legal
	@Singleton
	@Startup
	@ApplicationScoped
	public class Singleton1 {
	@PostConstruct
	public void init(){
	System.out.println(Singleton1.class.getName() + " constructed successfully on "+ new Date().toString());
	}
	}
	//CDI container will not be happy seeing this
	@Singleton
	@Startup
	@RequestScoped
	public class Singleton1 {
	@PostConstruct
	public void init(){
	System.out.println(Singleton1.class.getName() + " constructed successfully on "+ new Date().toString());
	}
	}
	Caused by: org.jboss.weld.exceptions.DefinitionException: WELD–000083: Scope interface javax.enterprise.context.RequestScoped is not allowed on singleton enterprise beans for class cdi.ejb.integration.Singleton1. Only @Dependent and @ApplicationScoped is allowed on singleton session beans.
	at org.jboss.weld.bean.SessionBean.checkScopeAllowed(SessionBean.java:125)
	at org.jboss.weld.bean.SessionBean.internalInitialize(SessionBean.java:101)
	at org.jboss.weld.bean.RIBean.initialize(RIBean.java:66)
	at org.jboss.weld.bootstrap.ConcurrentBeanDeployer$5.doWork(ConcurrentBeanDeployer.java:118)
	at org.jboss.weld.bootstrap.ConcurrentBeanDeployer$5.doWork(ConcurrentBeanDeployer.java:115)
	at org.jboss.weld.executor.IterativeWorkerTaskFactory$1.call(IterativeWorkerTaskFactory.java:59)
	at org.jboss.weld.executor.IterativeWorkerTaskFactory$1.call(IterativeWorkerTaskFactory.java:52)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266) [rt.jar:1.8.0_25]
	… 3 more

view raw

Singleton1.java

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Again, any other scope annotation and the CDI god will crush your WAR/EAR !

• Stateful EJBs can have any scope – no restrictions whatsoever! (although I do not see too much value in using @ApplicationScoped for Stateful beans – but that’s just me! feel free to chime in case you think otherwise)

Stay safe !
Cheers 😉