#3407 Honor isolation level on read-only transactions

[arimu1]

Summary

Fixes #3407 — when a method (or TxScope) is read-only and specifies an isolation level, Ebean dropped the isolation and always used the connection default (typically READ_COMMITTED).

Root cause

TransactionManager.createTransaction(TxScope) used the read-only path without applying isolation:

if (txScope.isReadonly()) {
  return createReadOnlyTransaction(null, false); // isolation ignored
} else {
  return createTransaction(true, txScope.getIsolationLevel());
}

Fix

After creating the read-only transaction, apply the same setIsolationLevel helper used by normal transactions:

if (txScope.isReadonly()) {
  SpiTransaction transaction = createReadOnlyTransaction(null, false);
  return transactionFactory.setIsolationLevel(transaction, txScope.getIsolationLevel());
}

When isolation is unset (-1), behavior is unchanged.

Tests

• TestTransactionalReadOnly#test_readonly_honors_isolation — programmatic TxScope.required().setReadOnly(true).setIsolation(SERIALIZABLE)
• TestTransactionalReadOnly#test_readonly_annotation_honors_isolation — @Transactional(readOnly = true, isolation = SERIALIZABLE)
• Existing read-only metric tests still pass

mvn -pl ebean-test -Dtest=org.tests.transaction.TestTransactionalReadOnly test
# Tests run: 4, Failures: 0 (Temurin 21, H2)

Notes

Isolation is still only as useful as the target database allows (e.g. some platforms map or reject READ_UNCOMMITTED). This change ensures the requested level is applied to the JDBC connection for read-only scopes when the platform supports it.

[rbygrave]

Do you have an application hitting this issue or is it more a bug fix for a known issue?

If you have an application hitting this, what database and isolation level is being used? Can you explain the use case? Do you have a workaround?

[arimu1]

@rbygrave Honest answer: I don't have a production app hitting this myself — the fix comes from the known issue #3407 reported by @rPraml.

Reporter's use case (from the issue): they hold update locks on certain tables and wanted some UI queries on a read-only connection at READ_UNCOMMITTED so the UI is less blocked. With @Transactional(readOnly = true, isolation = READ_UNCOMMITTED) they still got a read-only txn at the default isolation (READ_COMMITTED) because createReadOnlyTransaction never applied the requested isolation.

Workaround they used: skip the read-only connection (use a normal transaction) when a non-default isolation is required.

This PR: when TxScope requests both read-only and an isolation level, apply setIsolationLevel after creating the read-only transaction (same path as non-read-only scopes). Covered by TestTransactionalReadOnly for TxScope + @Transactional SERIALIZABLE on H2.

If you'd rather keep isolation unsupported on the read-only pool for product reasons (e.g. only useful on DB2), happy to close or narrow — just say the word.

[rbygrave]

Hi @rPraml - I'm good with this PR and looking to merge. Note sure if you've had a look at it yet but if you can that would be great. For me this change is exactly what I expect.

Thanks, Rob.

[rPraml]

LGTM