Enterprise JavaBeans 3.1, 6th Edition

Interceptor Lifecycle

Interceptor classes have the same lifecycles as the EJBs they intercept. Consider an interceptor class as an extension of the EJB’s bean instance. They are created along with bean instances. They are destroyed, passivated, and activated along with their bean instances as well. Also, it is important to note that interceptor classes have the same restrictions as the beans to which they are attached. For instance, you cannot inject an extended persistence context into an interceptor class if that interceptor does not intercept a stateful session bean.

Because interceptors have lifecycles and hook into lifecycle events, they can also hold internal state. This might be extremely useful when you want the interceptor class to obtain an open connection to a remote system and then close that connection at destroy time. You may also be interested in maintaining state that is particular to the bean instance on which the interceptor class is intercepted. Maybe you have a custom injection annotation that you have built and it needs special cleanup after the bean instance is destroyed. You can hold internal state within the interceptor class and do the cleanup when the interceptor and bean instance are destroyed.