Cascade remove relation without cascade remove target - java

I have a ManyToMany-relation between student and teacher in a Student_Teacher-table (Entityless).
Student: Teacher(owning-side): Student_Teacher
1= Tim 50= Mrs. Foo 1= 1 50
2= Ann 51= Mr. Bar 2= 1 51
3= 2 50
4= 2 51
As you see above every Student is currently related to every Teacher.
Now I like to remove Ann and I like to use the database's cascading techique to remove entries from the Student_Teacher-table but I do neither like to remove other Students, nor Teacher, nor other relationship.
This is what I have in the Student-Entity:
#ManyToMany(mappedBy="students")
public Set<Teacher> getTeachers() {
return teachers;
}
This is what I have in the Teacher-Entity:
#ManyToMany
#JoinTable(name="Student_Teacher", joinColumns = {
#JoinColumn(name="StudentID", referencedColumnName = "TeacherID", nullable = false)
}, inverseJoinColumns = {
#JoinColumn(name="TeacherID", referencedColumnName = "StudentID", nullable = false)
})
public Set<Student> getStudents() {
return students;
}
Now I like to use the database's delete cascade functionality. I repeat: The database's delete cascade functionality targeting the Student_Teacher-table only!
The problem:
org.h2.jdbc.JdbcSQLException: Referentielle Integrität verletzt: "FK_43PMYXR2NU005M2VNEB99VX0X: PUBLIC.Student_Teacher FOREIGN KEY(StudentID) REFERENCES PUBLIC.Student(StudentID) (2)"
Referential integrity constraint violation: "FK_43PMYXR2NU005M2VNEB99VX0X: PUBLIC.Student_Teacher FOREIGN KEY(StudentID) REFERENCES PUBLIC.Student(StudentID) (2)"; SQL statement:
delete from "Student" where name='Ann'
at org.h2.message.DbException.getJdbcSQLException(DbException.java:345)
at org.h2.message.DbException.get(DbException.java:179)
at org.h2.message.DbException.get(DbException.java:155)
at org.h2.constraint.ConstraintReferential.checkRow(ConstraintReferential.java:425)
What i can not use is the
#ManyToMany(cascade={CascadeType.REMOVE})
Because of the documetation tells me:
(Optional) The operations that must be cascaded to the target of the association.
The "target" is the Teacher, so this cascade would remove the Teacher (what I do not like to remove).
Question:
How to configure the entitys to remove Ann and the relation only using the database's cascade functionality?
Proof of Concept:
I tried another feature, I have noticed the possibility to configure the foreign-key nativly like this:
#ManyToMany(cascade = { CascadeType.REMOVE })
#JoinTable(name="Student_Teacher", joinColumns = {
#JoinColumn(name="StudentID", referencedColumnName = "TeacherID", nullable = false, foreignKey=#ForeignKey(foreignKeyDefinition="FOREIGN KEY (StudentID) REFERENCES Student ON DELETE NO ACTION"))
}, inverseJoinColumns = {
#JoinColumn(name="TeacherID", referencedColumnName = "StudentID", nullable = false, foreignKey=#ForeignKey(foreignKeyDefinition="FOREIGN KEY (TeacherID) REFERENCES Teacher ON DELETE NO ACTION"))
})
public Set<Student> getStudents() {
return students;
}
The problem is: This works fine but to trigger the removal of the entries in Student_Teacher I have to specify #ManyToMany(cascade = { CascadeType.REMOVE }) on both sides. Hibernate do not parse the foreignKeyDefinition and only see the CascadeType.REMOVE and drops the target-entitys (and the referenced Student Tim) out of the cache, but they are still in the database!!! So I have to clear the hibernate-session immendentelly after drop to re-read the existence of the Teachers Mrs. Foo and Mr. Bar and the Student Tim.

Now I like to use the database's delete cascade functionality. I
repeat: The database's delete cascade functionality targeting the
Student_Teacher-table only!
Simply define the cascade deletion on the database schema level, and the database would do it automatically. However, if the owning side of the association is loaded/manipulated in the same persistence context instance, then the persistence context will obviously be in an inconsistent state resulting in issues when managing the owning side, as Hibernate can't know what is done behind its back. Things get even more complicated if second-level caching is enabled.
So you can do it and take care not to load Teachers in the same session, but I don't recommend this and I write this only as an answer to this part of the question.
How to configure the entities to remove Ann and the relation only
using the database's cascade functionality?
There is no such configuration on JPA/Hibernate level. Most DDL declarations in mappings are used only for automatic schema generation, and are ignored when it comes to entity instances lifecycle and association management.
What i can not use is the
#ManyToMany(cascade={CascadeType.REMOVE})
Cascading of entity lifecycle operations and association management are two different notions that are completely independent of each other. Here you considered the former while you need the latter.
The problem you're facing is that you want to break the association from the Student (inverse side marked with mappedBy) when the Teacher is the owning side. You can do it by removing the student from all teachers to which it is associated, but that could lead to loading lots of data (all associated teachers with all their students). That's why introducing a separate entity for the association table could be a good compromise, as already suggested by #Mark, and as I suggested as well in some of my previous answers on similar topics together with some other potential improvements.

You may create a new entity TeacherStudent for the relationship, and then use CascadeType.REMOVE safely:
#Entity
public class Student {
#OneToMany(mappedBy="student",cascade={CascadeType.REMOVE})
public Set<TeacherStudent> teacherStudents;
}
#Entity
public class Teacher {
#OneToMany(mappedBy="teacher",cascade={CascadeType.REMOVE})
public Set<TeacherStudent> teacherStudents;
}
#Entity
public class TeacherStudent {
#ManyToOne
public Teacher teacher;
#ManyToOne
public Student student;
}
You'll have to take care of the composite foreign key for TeacherStudent. You may take a look at https://stackoverflow.com/a/29116687/3670143 for that.
Another relevant thread about ON DELETE CASCADE is JPA + Hibernate: How to define a constraint having ON DELETE CASCADE

As you see above every Student is related to every Teacher.
The point is when in a situation where "every A is related to every B", then there is no need to have a many to many table to keep such relationship. Since logically A and B is independent to each other in this situation. Adding/Deleting/Modifying A makes no effect on B and vice versa. This behaviour is exactly what you are after, because you want the cascading operations stop at the relation table:
delete cascade functionality targeting the Student_Teacher-table only!
Relationship table is only useful when in situation where "every A is related to a subset of B".
So to solve your problem is actually a fairly one: Drop the Student_Teacher table.

As we had a similar problem but finally solved it another way, here is our solution :
We replaced
#ManyToMany(fetch = FetchType.LAZY, cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
in our relationship with
#ManyToMany(fetch = FetchType.LAZY, cascade = {
CascadeType.DETACH,
CascadeType.MERGE,
CascadeType.REFRESH,
CascadeType.PERSIST
})
and it successfully removed the association without removing linked entity.

Related

JPA Inverse Join with OneToMany causing More than one row with the given identifier

I have a convenient relation set up in which an entity has a one-to-many relationship with another, and that has a many-to-one with another. So, a LISTING has many LISTING_LINE_ITEMS, and those LISTING_LINE_ITEMS have one SERVICE_PERIOD, but a SERVICE_PERIOD has many LISTING_LINE_ITEMS. I have attempted to describe this relationship using JPA's #JoinTable as follows:
LISTING
#OneToMany
#JoinTable (name = "LISTING_LINE_ITEM", joinColumns = #JoinColumn (name = "listing_id"), inverseJoinColumns = #JoinColumn (name = "service_period_id"))
Set<ServicePeriod> servicePeriods;
LISTING_LINE_ITEM
#ManyToOne (fetch = FetchType.EAGER)
#JoinColumn (name = "listing_id", nullable = false)
Listing listing;
#ManyToOne (fetch = FetchType.EAGER, cascade = CascadeType.PERSIST)
#JoinColumn (name = "service_period_id")
ServicePeriod servicePeriod;
SERVICE_PERIOD
#ManyToOne
#JoinTable (name = "LISTING_LINE_ITEM", joinColumns = #JoinColumn (name = "service_period_id"), inverseJoinColumns = #JoinColumn (name = "listing_id"))
Listing listing;
The obvious goal is to be able to easily obtain a list of ServicePeriods for a Listing or a single Listing for a ServicePeriod. Currently the way this is set up I'm getting an exception:
org.hibernate.HibernateException: More than one row with the given identifier was found: 361951, for class: com.gonfind.entity.ServicePeriod
I believe this is because a listing has ListingLineItems that refer to the same ServicePeriod. I'm sure that there is a way to accomplish what I'm after but I don't know what it is.
You do appear to have some problems there. On the technical / JPA side:
you cannot use LISTING_LINE_ITEM both as a join table and as an entity table. There are several reasons for this, but the main reason is that you will confuse JPA: it will try to use that table in different, incompatible ways for those two purposes.
in JPA, a bidirectional relationship is owned by exactly one side; the other side uses the mappedBy attribute of its relationship annotation to reference the owning side.
But you also have data design problems. Your constraint that line items' service periods be restricted to one of those separately associated with the same listing constitutes either
a functional dependency between non-key fields, if the listing id is not part of the line item key, or otherwise
a functional dependency on a subset of a key.
In the first case, your data fail to be in third normal form; in the second case they fail to be even in second normal form. Your trouble modeling this with JPA arises in part from the low level of normalization.
Normalizing your data properly would make things a lot easier on multiple levels. To do that, you need to remove the direct association between listings and line items, and instead associate them through service periods. You then would have:
Listing <-- one to many --> ServicePeriod <-- one to many --> LineItem
Of course, that would have implications on the structure of your application, but it's likely to be a long-term development and maintenance win, and maybe even a usability win, for the application to be aligned with the natural structure of your data like that. If you wish, you could put methods on your Listing entity to allow ListingLineItems to be managed to some extent as if they belonged directly to Listings, and vise versa.
That data organization would look something like this:
LISTING
#OneToMany(mappedBy = "listing",
fetch = FetchType.EAGER,
cascade = CascadeType.PERSIST)
Set<ServicePeriod> servicePeriods;
SERVICE_PERIOD
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.EAGER)
#JoinColumn(name = "listing_id")
Listing listing;
#OneToMany(mappedBy = "servicePeriod",
fetch = FetchType.EAGER,
cascade = CascadeType.PERSIST)
Set<ListingLineItem> lineItems;
LISTING_LINE_ITEM
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.EAGER)
#JoinColumn(name = "service_period_id")
ServicePeriod servicePeriod;
If you cannot restructure your data more or less that way, then you're stuck jerry-rigging something that cannot fully be described to JPA. I'm imagining a separate join table for Listing <-> ServicePeriod, a non-JPA FK constraint to that table from the entity table for line items, and, of course, proper form for the various bidirectional relationships.

#ManyToMany relation not save

I have some entities with#ManyToMany relation:
#ManyToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, fetch = FetchType.EAGER)
#JoinTable(name = "buses_drivers",
joinColumns = #JoinColumn (name = "driver_id_inner", referencedColumnName = "driver_id"),
inverseJoinColumns = #JoinColumn (name = "bus_id_inner", referencedColumnName = "bus_id"))
private List<Bus> buses;
and
#ManyToMany(mappedBy = "buses", fetch = FetchType.EAGER, cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
private List<Driver> drivers;
When execute saving Driver model with some Bus models, all ok. Tables buses_drivers store all keys those entities. But when saving Bus model with drivers, table doesn't change. I think problem with inverseJoinColmns mapping.
That is the expected behaviour. In a bidirectional many-to-many association one side has to be the inverse side. In your case it is the Bus side because it contains mappedBy:
The field that owns the relationship. Required unless the relationship
is unidirectional.
That means that Driver is the owner of the association and Hibernate will only check that side when maintaining the association.
You should definitely redesign your relations.
Without even getting into the problems with your current save scenario, with bidirectional #ManyToMany + CascadeType.ALL, you're destined to get even more troubles.
For example, deleting one bus will due to cascade, delete all its drivers, which due to cascade again, will delete all its buses. You'll basically end up deleting much more than you probably want. Also, check the SQL generated by these mappings, you'll most likely notice that its far from ideal.
For people doesn't understand from the accepted answer. This is more appropriate : Java: saving entities with ManyToMany association
I came across with this problem in test cases when filling test data.
When there is an owning side you just can save child just with owner.

cascade type save update in Hibernate

I am using hibernate with JPA annotations for relationship mapping.
I have three entities in my code User Group & User_Group
User & Group are in a ManyToMany relationship.
User_Group is a kinda bridge table but with some additional fields. So here is the modified mapping code.
User
#Entity
#Table(name = "USERS")
public class User {
#OneToMany(mappedBy = "user")
private Set<UserGroup> userGroups
}
Group
#Entity
#Table(name = "GROUPS")
public class Group {
#OneToMany(mappedBy = "group")
private Set<UserGroup> userGroups
}
UserGroup
#Entity
#Table(name = "USERS_GROUPS")
public class UserGroup {
#ManyToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
#JoinColumn(name = "USER_ID")
private User user;
#ManyToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
#JoinColumn(name = "GROUP_ID")
private Group group;
}
When I set the user & group object to the usergroup & save it.
User user = new User("tommy", "ymmot", "tommy#gmail.com");
Group group = new Group("Coders");
UserGroup userGroup = new UserGroup();
userGroup.setGroup(group);
userGroup.setUser(user);
userGroup.setActivated(true);
userGroup.setRegisteredDate(new Date());
session.save(userGroup);
Things work fine. With CascadeType.ALL the group object & user object are updated too. But when I delete the userGroup object. The child object are deleted too.
Deletion of child objects is a strict no no.
There is no CascadeType.SAVE-UPDATE in JPA, which just does save or update but no delete. How do I achieve this.
If I remove the CascadeType.ALL from the mapping the child objects don't get updated & I need them to be updated.
SAVE_UPDATE is for save(), update(), and saveOrUpdate(), which are 3 Hibernate-proprietary methods. JPA only has persist() and merge(). So, if you want to use cascading on Hibernate-proprietary methods, you'll need to use Hibernate-proprietary annotations. In this case, Cascade.
Or you could stop using the Hibernate Session, and use the standard JPA API instead.
CascadeType.ALL includes CascadeType.REMOVE too.
The solution is to use all CascadeType.* you need except CascadeType.REMOVE, like so:
#ManyToOne(cascade = {CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.REFRESH, CascadeType.MERGE}))
in your UserGroup definitions.
It's almost always a code smell when propagating from child to parent entity, it should be the other way round.
From Cascading best practices:
Cascading only makes sense only for Parent – Child associations (the
Parent entity state transition being cascaded to its Child entities).
Cascading from Child to Parent is not very useful and usually, it’s a
mapping code smell.
From Hibernate best practices:
Avoid cascade remove for huge relationships
Most developers (myself included) get a little nervous when they see a
CascadeType.REMOVE definition for a relationship. It tells Hibernate
to also delete the related entities when it deletes this one. There is
always the fear that the related entity also uses cascade remove for
some of its relationships and that Hibernate might delete more
database records than intended. During all the years I’ve worked with
Hibernate, this has never happened to me, and I don’t think it’s a
real issue. But cascade remove makes it incredibly hard to understand
what exactly happens if you delete an entity. And that’s something you
should always avoid. If you have a closer look at how Hibernate
deletes the related entities, you will find another reason to avoid
it. Hibernate performs 2 SQL statements for each related entity: 1
SELECT statement to fetch the entity from the database and 1 DELETE
statement to remove it. This might be OK, if there are only 1 or 2
related entities but creates performance issues if there are large
numbers of them.

hibernate many-to-many relationship updating unexpectingly

I have two classes:
class TrainingCourse {
Integer id;
#OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, fetch=FetchType.EAGER)
#JoinTable(name = "TrainingCourseClass", joinColumns = { #JoinColumn(name = "CourseID") }, inverseJoinColumns = { #JoinColumn(name = "ClassID") })
private Set<TrainingClass> trainingClasses;
}
class TrainingClass {
Integer id;
}
In the database they are mapped using a join table. So this is a unidirectional relationship.
From the UI, when a TrainingCourse is created, a list of previously created TrainingClasses are selected from the UI.
Now if I create the TrainingCourse, then it automatically updates the associated TrainingClasses also. But trainingClass is independent of TrainingCourse and can exist independently. So TrainingClasses are created and updated separately from the TrainingCourse. So saving the TrainingCourse should save data in the TrainingCourse table and it will also save the association in the join Table TrainingCourseClass. Nothing should happen in the table TrainingClass.
However if I add these to the columns:
nullable=false, updatable=false and CascadeType.REMOVE
#OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.REMOVE, fetch=FetchType.EAGER)
#JoinTable(name = "TrainingCourseClass", joinColumns = { #JoinColumn(name = "CourseID", nullable=false, updatable=false) }, inverseJoinColumns = { #JoinColumn(name = "ClassID", nullable=false, updatable=false) })
private Set<TrainingClass> trainingClasses;
Then the problem is fixed ie creating trainingCourse doesn't update the trainingClass table. Now I am not 100% sure whether it is the right solution or how it is working to solve the problem. There is also another thing called MappedBy. I am not sure whether this is relevant here.
I just used it as a guess and it is working. Moreover, this seems to be really a many-to-many relationship ie The same class can belong to many courses and one course can include many classes. But one-to-many relationship is also working. This is not very convincing. The trainingclass is really unaware of what training courses include it. It looks like the difference between one-to-many and many-to-many is like whether or not to have bidirectional pointers to each other.
Hence please suggest whether the above approach is correct to prevent updating the trainingclass while creating the trainingcourse.
Thanks
Your first mapping uses cascade = ALL. That means that every operation you make on a TrainingCourse (persist, merge, remove, etc.) will also be applied on the associated TrainingClass. That's precisely what you don't want, if I understand correctly. So just don't set any cascade to this association.
Regarding OneToMany vs. ManyToMany: if what you really want is a OneToMany (i.e. a TraningClass should not be associated with more than one TrainingCourse), then you should have a unique contraint on the TrainingCourseClass.ClassID column. That's what guarantees that the association is a OneToMany and not a ManyToMany.

JPA: implicit cascades for relationships mapped as #ManyToMany #JoinTable?

I have the following mapping:
#Entity
#Table(name = "Prequalifications")
public class Prequalification implements Serializable
{
...
#ManyToMany
#JoinTable(name = "Partnerships", joinColumns = #JoinColumn(name = "prequalification_id", referencedColumnName = "id"), inverseJoinColumns = #JoinColumn(name = "company_id", referencedColumnName = "id"))
private Set<Company> companies;
...
}
In a #ManyToMany + #JoinTable mapped relationship, isn't it kind of implicit that the association (link) entities (here Partnerships) are automatically persisted, removed, etc. even though
by default, relationships have an empty cascade set
? The above quote was taken from "Pro JPA 2, by Mike Keith".
Executing
em.merge(prequalification);
on the above entity does persist the associated partnerships without any cascade types specified.
Am I correct that this implicit cascade has to be performed? This isn't mentioned anywhere I looked...
The rows in the join table will be inserted/deleted as part of the owning Entity (if bi-directional the side without the mappedBy). So if you persist or remove or update the Prequalification the join table rows will also be inserted or deleted.
The target Company objects will not be cascaded to. So on remove() they will not be deleted, if the list is updated they will not be deleted unless orphanRemovla is set. Persist should also not be cascaded, but what happens when you have references to "detached" objects is somewhat of a grey area. Technically an error should be thrown, because the object is new and the relationship was not cascade persist. It may also try to insert and get a constraint error. It should not cascade the persist, although your object model is technically in an invalid state, so what occurs may depend on the provider.
Wanted to add a comment, but don't have enough rep for it.
I had the same question as #D-Dᴙum: "Where in the docs can we find a reference to this behaviour?"
I found it in the Hibernate docs (many-to-many).
If you scroll just a bit just below the code example there, you will find:
When an entity is removed from the #ManyToMany collection, Hibernate simply deletes the joining record in the link table. Unfortunately, this operation requires removing all entries associated with a given parent and recreating the ones that are listed in the current running persistent context.
Where the "link table" refers to the "join table".
Hope this helps.

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