Develop Reference

Mixing Hibernate Inheritance Strategies

In C# we are using an ORM that lets us specify in each child/Sub Class where we want to store it:
[MapInheritance(MapInheritanceType.ParentTable)] //this means that store employee specific fields in person table
public partial class Employee: Person
{}
I want to use the same in Java side,But in Hibernate we specify strategy in parent Class .We have following structure: enter image description here
I don't want a table for base class.I'd like to store person & employee in user table. and customer in its own table.
But it seems that hibernate has shortcoming in this regard and asks for one hierarchy policy for all branch. I want to be able to change policy in lower branches.
How is it possible to implement this in jpa or hibernate?

You can do that using #MappedSuperclass
One #MappedSuperclass or multiple #MappedSuperclass are allowed in same inheritance hierarchy.
#MappedSuperclass
public class FirstMapped {
#Id int id;
}
#MappedSuperclass
public class SecondMapped extends FirstMapped {
String createdOn;
}
#Entity
public class MyTable extends SecondMapped {
String myColumn;
}
These classes must create just one table: MyTable with columns:
id
createdOn
myColumn

JPA - how to model this join with conditions?

I was trying to find an answer but, unfortunately, with no luck.
The data structure looks like this:
TABLE_X - contains userId, also userType telling if this is external or internal user
INTERNAL_USERS - contains key userId
EXTERNAL_USERS - also contains key userId
TABLE_X.userId is either INTERNAL_USERS.userId or EXTERNAL_USERS.userId.
Now, I would like to map an entity out of TABLE_X and have user object mapped to correct entity, either INTERNAL_USERS or EXTERNAL_USERS.
How should I do this?
Should I create two fields and map one to INTERNAL_USERS and one two EXTERNAL_USERS and just see which one is not empty?

If I understand correctly your question, what you have to do is to replicate structure of the TABLE_X columns with fields on the TABLE_X class, and add to fields one for INTERNAL_USERS.userID and one for EXTERNAL_USERS.userID
But if you store on TABLE_X.userType if a user is internal or external, I think that the best thing you can do is not create any other table, because you just have the information you need on your first table (TABLE_X). If you want to know all the users that are internal for instance, just do a SQL and select all the values from TABLE_X where userType = "Internal"

Use Hibernate inheritance. Check out the Table per class inheritance pattern. Here you have both INTERNAL_USERS or EXTERNAL_USERS data in TABLE_X with userType as the discriminator column.
http://docs.jboss.org/hibernate/stable/annotations/reference/en/html_single/#d0e1191

Given the table structure, you can use JPA Inheritance as detailed here:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Java_Persistence/Inheritance#Example_joined_inheritance_annotations
In Hibernate you can model such relationships as follows. When querying for a User you can then rely on Hibernate to return an instance of the correct type.
#Entity
#Inheritance(strategy=InheritanceType.JOINED)
public class User{
#Id
private Long userId;
}
#Entity
public class InternalUser extends User{
}
#Entity
public class ExternalUser extends User{
}
As noted in the article linked to, Hibernate does not require a discriminator column to be specified when using joined inheritance. It does however support a discriminator column if one is available. As you have one available in your schema - userType - then you could explicitly specify it if you wish. I imagine this would yield some performance benefit in terms of the generated SQL:
Mappings with optional discriminator column:
#Entity
#Inheritance(strategy=InheritanceType.JOINED)
#DiscriminatorColumn(name="userType")
public class User{
#Id
private Long userId;
}
#Entity
#DiscriminatorValue("INT")
public class InternalUser extends User{
}
#Entity
#DiscriminatorValue("EXT")
public class ExternalUser extends User{
}

Define an inherited column to be part of composite primary key in JPA

We have an abstract base entity class that defines columns found in all of our entities (e.g. creation and modifications timestamps and related user IDs). For most of our entities, there are two related database tables: one that holds the "live" data, i.e. the current state of the entity; and one that holds the audit trail, i.e. all historical versions of the entity, as snapshots.
One of the columns shared by all entities (and defined in the base entity class) is a version number column, which is a simple running sequence that tells how many edits have been made to that particular entity. The version column is present in both the audit table and the "regular" table, but in the audit table, the version column is also part of a composite primary key, which is formed by combining the primary key of the "regular" entity and the version number. Simplified example (some entity-level annotations omitted for brevity):
#MappedSuperclass
public abstract class BaseEntity {
#Column(name = "version")
private Long version;
// Timestamps, user IDs etc.
}
#MappedSuperclass
#Inheritance(strategy = InheritanceType.TABLE_PER_CLASS)
public abstract class PersonBase extends BaseEntity {
// All basic columns of a person defined here
}
public class Person extends PersonBase {
#Id
#Column(name = "id")
private long id;
// All references to other entities defined here
}
public class PersonAudit extends PersonBase {
#Id
#Column(name = "id")
private long id;
// FIXME: Version column should be part of composite primary key
// All foreign key columns defined here (can't have
// a direct FK relationship in an audit table, as you
// don't know which version to link to)
}
Is it possible to make the inherited version column be part of a composite primary key in the audit entities? I tried declaring the version column also in the PersonAudit table and adding the #Id annotation to it, but after that the version field in BaseEntity wasn't populated anymore. It'd be very convenient to have the field in BaseEntity as we use it in some generic Criteria Queries using the JPA static metamodel, and if we move the field declaration to the individual audit entities, we can't reference the column anymore in those queries.
P.S. We're using Hibernate, so Hibernate-specific solutions are also acceptable if JPA doesn't enable this.

How to solve 'no primary key specified' for an Entity that inherits from another Entity (JPA)?

I want to have a superclass that is common to all document types:
#Entity
public abstract class Doc implements Serializable
{
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
protected long docId;
public long getDocId()
{
return docId;
}
public void setDocId(long docId)
{
this.docId = docId;
}
}
And I want to have child classes for each doc type:
#Entity
#Table(name = "DocTypeA")
public class DocTypeA extends Doc implements Serializable
{
// other child fields
}
But it gives an error and says that DocTypeA needs a primary key. How can I isolate the primary key and put it in the super class? Because all the subclasses will have that same id field.
I am using EclipseLink.
And my other question is: Why do I need to put #Entity in the abstract class? Being an abstract class it cannot be instantiated, so what is the point of marking it as an Entity? Is it really necessary? I will not persist the superclass. I need it only for isolating the code common in all subclasses.
The stack trace is a long one, relevant part is pasted below:
Exception Description: Entity class [class repository.DocTypeA] has no primary key specified. It should define either an #Id, #EmbeddedId or an #IdClass. If you have defined PK using any of these annotations then make sure that you do not have mixed access-type (both fields and properties annotated) in your entity class hierarchy.

According to the official JavaDoc the annotation #MappedSuperclass:
Designates a class whose mapping information is applied to the entities that inherit from it. A mapped superclass has no separate table defined for it.
which is what you are looking for. Thus abstract classes can easily be used for common attributes of entities, which in most cases a primary key or DB-generated object identifier is. Annotated fields of that abstract class will then only be mapped for concrete subclasses:
A class designated with the MappedSuperclass annotation can be mapped in the same way as an entity except that the mappings will apply only to its subclasses since no table exists for the mapped superclass itself. When applied to the subclasses the inherited mappings will apply in the context of the subclass tables.
Exchange the #Entity annotation in the abstract class Doc like so:
#MappedSuperclass
public abstract class Doc implements Serializable
{
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
protected long docId;
//...
}
and you should be good to go.
Hope it helps.

Over ride default fetch to skip rows with certain values

I am using Java, Hibernate, Spring Data and fairly new to this technology. I need to figure out how to Skip rows that are marked as 'archived.' We have a strict guidance from our DB architect that no rows shall be deleted from the database.
#MappedSuperclass
public class AbstractEntity implements Identifiable<String> {
#Id
#GeneratedValue(generator="system-uuid")
#GenericGenerator(name="system-uuid", strategy="uuid")
private String id;
private boolean archived; //<----?
}
#Entity
public class Employee extends AbstractEntity {
private String title;
private String fullName;
#ManyToOne
private Department dept;
}
#Entity
public class Department extends AbstractEntity {
private String name;
}
In the above example, any class extending AbstractEntity should never return rows that have archived == true. All my domain classes will be extending AbstractEntity so I'd like a solution that's either implemented in AbstractEntity.java or at some global configuration so that all generated SQL calls are 'where [table].archived <> true'

Take a look at Hibernate Filters.
#FilterDef(name="activeOnly")
#Filter(name="activeOnly", condition= "archived <> 1")
// assumes that all tables have a numeric column "archived"
// as you can notice, this is a filter at the SQL Level
// (not at the Entity level)
#MappedSuperclass
public class AbstractEntity // ....
I've never used Spring Data, but the Adding custom behavior to all repositories section of the official documentation lead me to belieave that it is quite easy to obtain an injected EntityManager and customize its behaviour. Just unwrap it and enable the filter.
Session session = entityManager.unwrap(Session.class);
session.enableFilter("activeOnly");
If you want the filter to be applied for all subclasses of the #MappedSuperclass use a recent version of Hibernate. Only version 3.5 and greater (see HHH-4332) supports this behaviour.
Also, there is one gotcha, you may need to repeat the filter on associations (See Hibernate Filters on related table with MappedSuperClass).
If you want to customize the delete operations as well, use #SQLDelete to mark archived = 1 (see Soft deletes using Hibernate annotations). But to the best of my knowledge this only works on mapped entities (nothing can be done at the #MappedSuperclass level)