This example shows how to create a Stateful session EJB using annotations.

A Stateful session bean is a session bean whose instances can maintain the conversational state with the client. The conversational state of the stateful session bean, which describes the conversation between a specific client and a session bean, is contained in the fields of the stateful session bean.

Simply put, when you create a stateful bean an actual instance is created by the container and dedicated to you and only you. Every call you make will go to your instance. Further, your instance will not be shared with anyone unless you give them a reference to your stateful bean. The instance will last until you remove it or until it times-out and is removed by the container.

With EJB 3.0, it's now possible to write stateful session bean without specifying a deployment descriptor; you basically have to write just a remote or local business interface, which is a

plain-old-java-interface,

annotated

with

the

@Remote

or

@Local

annotation

the

stateful

session

bean

implementation,

a

plain-old-java-object

which

implements

the

remote

or

the

local

business

interface

and

is

annotated

with

the

@Stateful

annotation

This

example

is

the

"simple-stateful"

example

located

in

the

openejb-examples.zip

available

on

the

download

page.