Question

I would like to know if there is anyway I can do something similar to the following thing with JPA:

@ManyToMany(cascade=CascadeType.PERSIST)
List<String> trackKeywords;

Or do I need to create another model with a String attribute?

Answer 1

JPA does not support such a “collection of values”. Hibernate does, though, so if you’re using Hibernate, you can use the extensions (section 2.4.6.2.5) alongside the standard JPA annotations.

@CollectionOfElements
public List<String> getNickNames() {
   return nickNames;
}

Otherwise, yes, you’ll likely need to write a wrapper entity.