A transient entity bean is an EJB which appears to clients to be a persistent object (that is, it is retrieved using a key via findByPrimaryKey()) but which is actually only retained for as long as the container keeps it in the object pool.  Something like,

    public QueryPK ejbFindByPrimaryKey(QueryPK key) { return key; }
    // no implementations for ejbCreate()
    public ejbLoad() {
      // execute search based on query from getPrimaryKey()
    }
    public ejbStore() { /* don't save; just disappear */ }

--PeterBonney