== Why is this an issue?

Marking a non-`public` method `@Transactional` is both useless and misleading because Spring does not recognize non-`public` methods, and so makes no provision for their proper invocation.
Nor does Spring make provision for the methods invoked by the method it called.


Therefore marking a `private` method, for instance, `@Transactional` can only result in a runtime error or exception if the method is annotated as `@Transactional`.

== How to fix it
Make the method public or remove the `@Transactional` annotation.

=== Code examples
==== Noncompliant code example

[source,java,diff-id=1,diff-type=noncompliant]
----
@Transactional  // Noncompliant
void doTheThing(ArgClass arg) {
  // ...
}

@Transactional  // Noncompliant
private void doTheOtherThing(ArgClass arg) {
  // ...
}
----

==== Compliant solution

[source,java,diff-id=1,diff-type=compliant]
----
@Transactional
public void doTheThing(ArgClass arg) {
  // ...
}

private void doTheOtherThing(ArgClass arg) {
  // ...
}
----


ifdef::env-github,rspecator-view[]

'''
== Implementation Specification
(visible only on this page)

=== Message

Make this method "public" or remove the "@Transactional" annotation


'''
== Comments And Links
(visible only on this page)

=== on 21 Nov 2014, 12:28:29 Freddy Mallet wrote:
Two questions/remarks:

* Are we talking about private methods or about non-public methods ? If my feeling is correct this rule should only target private methods
* I would tag the rule with the label "spring"
* As this rule is associated to the Reliability characteristic, I think the default severity should be "Critical"

=== on 21 Nov 2014, 13:28:08 Ann Campbell wrote:
The Spring docs are pretty clear that only `public` method can actually be `@Transactional`

=== on 21 Nov 2014, 14:14:44 Freddy Mallet wrote:
Ok Ann, so I would replace :


"Therefore marking a private method"


by


"Therefore marking for instance a private method"


to prevent any misunderstanding

=== on 27 Nov 2018, 13:06:43 Semyon Danilov wrote:
\[~ann.campbell.2] Actually, any method can be Transactional if you're using AspectJ compiler, it's stated in the docs https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/4.2.x/spring-framework-reference/html/transaction.html[here]. The excerpt:


----
Method visibility and @Transactional

When using proxies, you should apply the @Transactional annotation only to methods with public visibility. If you do annotate protected, private or package-visible methods with the @Transactional annotation, no error is raised, but the annotated method does not exhibit the configured transactional settings. Consider the use of AspectJ (see below) if you need to annotate non-public methods.
----

=== on 27 Nov 2018, 13:33:30 Ann Campbell wrote:
FYI [~alexandre.gigleux] ^

endif::env-github,rspecator-view[]