Question

I have two table Part and SubPart. Part table has general fields like id, name, desc etc. The SubPart table has part_id, sub_part_id as composite key. Both of these columns are referring to Part table and has a one to many mapping for each of them, like for each part_id in the Part table there can be multiple entries in SubPart table for both the columns. I’m having problem defining the composite key for the SubPart table. I tried the Embedded tag but its not working. How can I address this problem. Thanks a lot.

Part table like this.

@Entity
@Table(name="Part")
public class Part {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    @Column(name="Part_Id")
    private int id;
    @Column(name="Part_Number")
    private String partNumber;
    @Column(name="Part_Name")
    private String partName;
}

Sub Part Table

@Entity
@Table(name="SubPart")
public class SubPart {
    // part and subPart combination is the compound key here.
    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name="Part_Id")
    private Part part;

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name="Sub_Part_Id")
    private Part subPart;

    @Column(name="Quantity")
    private Integer quantity;
}

Answer 1

You said

I’m having problem defining the composite key for the SubPart table

When you have a compound primary key, you must define a class (Usually a static inner class) which defines your compound primery key (Just an advice: because Hibernate makes use of proxies, prefer to put your annotated mapping on the getter’s instead of field members)

/**
  * When both entity class and target table SHARE the same name
  * You do not need @Table annotation
  */
@Entity
public class SubPart implements Serializable {

    @EmbeddedId
    private SubPartId subPartId;

    @ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
    @JoinColumn(name="PART_ID", insertable=false, updateable=false)
    private Part part;

    @ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
    @JoinColumn(name="SUP_PART_ID", insertable=false, updateable=false)
    private SubPart subPart;

    /**
      * required no-arg constructor
      */
    public SubPart() {}
    public SubPart(SubPartId subPartId) {
        this.subPartId = subPartId;
    }

    // getter's and setter's

    /**
      * It MUST implements Serializable
      * It MUST overrides equals and hashCode method
      * It MUST has a no-arg constructor
      *
      * Hibernate/JPA 1.0 does not support automatic generation of compound primary key
      * You SHOULD set up manually
      */
    @Embeddable
    public static class SubPartId implements Serializable {

        @Column(name="PART_ID", updateable=false, nullable=false)
        private Integer partId;
        @Column(name="SUB_PART_ID", updateable=false, nullable=false)
        private Integer subPartId;

        /**
          * required no-arg constructor
          */
        public SubPartId() {}
        public SubPartId(Integer partId, Integer subPartId) {
            this.partId = partId;
            this.subPartId = subPartId;
        }

        // getter's and setter's

        @Override
        public boolean equals(Object o) {
            if(!(o instanceof SubPartId))
                return null;

            final SubPartId other = (SubPartId) o;
            return new EqualsBuilder().append(getPartId(), other.getPartId())
                                      .append(getSubPartId(), other.getSubPartId())
                                      .isEquals();
        }

        @Override
        public int hashCode() {
            return new HashCodeBuilder().append(getPartId())
                                        .append(getSubPartId())
                                        .toHashCode();  
        }

    }

}

Notice Part and SubPart mapping has been marked as insertable=false, updateable=false Because the mapping has been defined in the compound primary key. Hibernate does not allow you mapping two properties WITH THE SAME COLUMN unless you mark insertable=false, updateable=false. Otherwise you will see this nice exception

Should be marked with insertable=false, updateable=false