JPA allows you to propagate the state transition from a parent entity to a child. For this purpose, the JPA javax.persistence.CascadeType defines various cascade types:
- ALL - cascades all entity state transitions
- PERSIST - cascades the entity persist operation.
- MERGE - cascades the entity merge operation.
- REMOVE - cascades the entity remove operation.
- REFRESH - cascades the entity refresh operation.
- DETACH - cascades the entity detach operation.
Additionally, the CascadeType.ALL will propagate any Hibernate-specific operation, which is defined by the org.hibernate.annotations.CascadeType enum:
- SAVE_UPDATE - cascades the entity saveOrUpdate operation.
- REPLICATE - cascades the entity replicate operation.
- LOCK - cascades the entity lock operation.
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.
The following examples will explain some of the aforementioned cascade operations using the following entities:
@Entity
public class Person {
@Id
private Long id;
private String name;
@OneToMany(mappedBy = "owner", cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
private List < Phone > phones = new ArrayList < > ();
//Getters and setters are omitted for brevity
public void addPhone(Phone phone) {
this.phones.add(phone);
phone.setOwner(this);
}
}
@Entity
public class Phone {
@Id
private Long id;
@Column(name = "`number`")
private String number;
@ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
private Person owner;
//Getters and setters are omitted for brevity
}
CascadeType.PERSIST
The CascadeType.PERSIST allows us to persist a child entity along with the parent one.
CascadeType.PERSIST example
Person person = new Person();
person.setId( 1L );
person.setName( "John Doe" );
Phone phone = new Phone();
phone.setId( 1L );
phone.setNumber( "123-456-7890" );
person.addPhone( phone );
entityManager.persist( person );
The above hibernate code prints the following SQL statements at the console:
INSERT INTO Person ( name, id )
VALUES ( 'John Doe', 1 )
INSERT INTO Phone ( `number`, person_id, id )
VALUE ( '123-456-7890', 1, 1 )
From above SQL statements proves that when a Person persists in a database it also persists in its child Phone object.
CascadeType.MERGE
The CascadeType.MERGE allows us to merge a child entity along with the parent one.
CascadeType.MERGE example
Phone phone = entityManager.find( Phone.class, 1L );
Person person = phone.getOwner();
person.setName( "John Doe Jr." );
phone.setNumber( "987-654-3210" );
entityManager.clear();
entityManager.merge( person );
The above hibernate code prints the following SQL statements at the console:
SELECT
p.id as id1_0_1_,
p.name as name2_0_1_,
ph.owner_id as owner_id3_1_3_,
ph.id as id1_1_3_,
ph.id as id1_1_0_,
ph."number" as number2_1_0_,
ph.owner_id as owner_id3_1_0_
FROM
Person p
LEFT OUTER JOIN
Phone ph
on p.id=ph.owner_id
WHERE
p.id = 1
During a merge, the current state of the entity is copied onto the entity version that was just fetched from the database. That’s the reason why Hibernate executed the SELECT statement which fetched both the Person entity along with its children.
CascadeType.REMOVE
The CascadeType.REMOVE allows us to remove a child entity along with the parent one.
Traditionally, Hibernate called this operation delete, that’s why the org.hibernate.annotations.CascadeType provides a DELETE cascade option. However, CascadeType.REMOVE and org.hibernate.annotations.CascadeType.DELETE are identical.
CascadeType.REMOVE example
Person person = entityManager.find( Person.class, 1L );
entityManager.remove( person );
The above hibernate code prints the following SQL statements at the console:
DELETE FROM Phone WHERE id = 1
DELETE FROM Person WHERE id = 1
CascadeType.DETACH
CascadeType.DETACH is used to propagate the detach operation from a parent entity to a child.
CascadeType.DETACH example
Person person = entityManager.find( Person.class, 1L );
assertEquals( 1, person.getPhones().size() );
Phone phone = person.getPhones().get( 0 );
assertTrue( entityManager.contains( person ));
assertTrue( entityManager.contains( phone ));
entityManager.detach( person );
assertFalse( entityManager.contains( person ));
assertFalse( entityManager.contains( phone ));
CascadeType.LOCK
Although unintuitively, CascadeType.LOCK does not propagate a lock request from a parent entity to its children. Such a use case requires the use of the PessimisticLockScope.EXTENDED value of the javax.persistence.lock.scope property.
However, CascadeType.LOCK allows us to reattach a parent entity along with its children to the currently running Persistence Context.
CascadeType.LOCK example
Person person = entityManager.find( Person.class, 1L );
assertEquals( 1, person.getPhones().size() );
Phone phone = person.getPhones().get( 0 );
assertTrue( entityManager.contains( person ) );
assertTrue( entityManager.contains( phone ) );
entityManager.detach( person );
assertFalse( entityManager.contains( person ) );
assertFalse( entityManager.contains( phone ) );
entityManager.unwrap( Session.class )
.buildLockRequest( new LockOptions( LockMode.NONE ) )
.lock( person );
assertTrue( entityManager.contains( person ) );
assertTrue( entityManager.contains( phone ) );
CascadeType.REFRESH
The CascadeType.REFRESH is used to propagate the refresh operation from a parent entity to a child. The refresh operation will discard the current entity state, and it will override it using the one loaded from the database.
CascadeType.REFRESH example
Person person = entityManager.find( Person.class, 1L );
Phone phone = person.getPhones().get( 0 );
person.setName( "John Doe Jr." );
phone.setNumber( "987-654-3210" );
entityManager.refresh( person );
assertEquals( "John Doe", person.getName() );
assertEquals( "123-456-7890", phone.getNumber() );
The above hibernate code prints the following SQL statements at the console:
SELECT
p.id as id1_0_1_,
p.name as name2_0_1_,
ph.owner_id as owner_id3_1_3_,
ph.id as id1_1_3_,
ph.id as id1_1_0_,
ph."number" as number2_1_0_,
ph.owner_id as owner_id3_1_0_
FROM
Person p
LEFT OUTER JOIN
Phone ph
ON p.id=ph.owner_id
WHERE
p.id = 1
In the aforementioned example, you can see that both the Person and Phone entities are refreshed even if we only called this operation on the parent entity only.
CascadeType.REPLICATE
The CascadeType.REPLICATE is to replicate both the parent and the child entities. The replicate operation allows you to synchronize entities coming from different sources of data.
CascadeType.REPLICATE example
Person person = new Person();
person.setId( 1L );
person.setName( "John Doe Sr." );
Phone phone = new Phone();
phone.setId( 1L );
phone.setNumber( "(01) 123-456-7890" );
person.addPhone( phone );
entityManager.unwrap( Session.class ).replicate( person, ReplicationMode.OVERWRITE );
The above hibernate code prints the following SQL statements at the console:
SELECT
id
FROM
Person
WHERE
id = 1
SELECT
id
FROM
Phone
WHERE
id = 1
UPDATE
Person
SET
name = 'John Doe Sr.'
WHERE
id = 1
UPDATE
Phone
SET
"number" = '(01) 123-456-7890',
owner_id = 1
WHERE
id = 1
As illustrated by the SQL statements being generated, both the Person and Phone entities are replicated to the underlying database rows.
Summary of JPA vs Hibernate Cascade Types
Learn Hibernate ORM at Complete Guide to Hibernate ORM Framework
GitHub Repository
The complete source code of this article is available on my GitHub Repository - https://github.com/RameshMF/Hibernate-ORM-Tutorials
Conclusion
In this article, we have seen JPA and Hibernate provided various cascade types with examples.
You can learn more about Hibernate ORM Framework at Hibernate Tutorial
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