JPA and Hibernate Cascade Types

JPA and Hibernate Cascade Types

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
publicclassPerson {

@Id
privateLong id;

privateString name;

@OneToMany(mappedBy="owner", cascade=CascadeType.ALL)
privateList< Phone> phones =newArrayList<> ();

//Getters and setters are omitted for brevity

publicvoidaddPhone(Phonephone) {
this.phones.add(phone);
phone.setOwner(this);
    }
}


@Entity
publicclassPhone {

@Id
privateLong id;

@Column(name="`number`")
privateString number;

@ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
privatePerson 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

Personperson=newPerson();
person.setId(1L );
person.setName("John Doe" );

Phonephone=newPhone();
phone.setId(1L );
phone.setNumber("123-456-7890" );

person.addPhone( phone );

entityManager.persist( person );

The above hibernate code prints following SQL statements at the console:

INSERTINTOPerson( name, id )
VALUES( 'John Doe', 1 )

INSERTINTOPhone( `number`, person_id, id )
VALUE( '123-456-7890', 1, 1 )

From above SQL statements proves that when Person persist into a database it also persists it’s child Phone object.

CascadeType.MERGE

The CascadeType.MERGE allows us to merge a child entity along with the parent one.

CascadeType.MERGE example

Phonephone=entityManager.find(Phone.class, 1L );
Personperson=phone.getOwner();

person.setName("John Doe Jr." );
phone.setNumber("987-654-3210" );

entityManager.clear();

entityManager.merge( person );

The above hibernate code prints following SQL statements at the console:

SELECT
p.idas id1_0_1_,
p.nameas name2_0_1_,
ph.owner_idas owner_id3_1_3_,
ph.idas id1_1_3_,
ph.idas id1_1_0_,
ph."number"as number2_1_0_,
ph.owner_idas owner_id3_1_0_
FROM
    Person p
LEFT OUTER JOIN
    Phone ph
onp.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

Personperson=entityManager.find(Person.class, 1L );

entityManager.remove( person );

The above hibernate code prints following SQL statements at the console:

DELETEFROM Phone WHERE id =1

DELETEFROM 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

Personperson=entityManager.find(Person.class, 1L );
assertEquals(1, person.getPhones().size() );
Phonephone=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

Personperson=entityManager.find(Person.class, 1L );
assertEquals(1, person.getPhones().size() );
Phonephone=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(newLockOptions( 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

Personperson=entityManager.find(Person.class, 1L );
Phonephone=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 following SQL statements at the console:

SELECT
p.idas id1_0_1_,
p.nameas name2_0_1_,
ph.owner_idas owner_id3_1_3_,
ph.idas id1_1_3_,
ph.idas id1_1_0_,
ph."number"as number2_1_0_,
ph.owner_idas owner_id3_1_0_
FROM
    Person p
LEFT OUTER JOIN
    Phone ph
ONp.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

Personperson=newPerson();
person.setId(1L );
person.setName("John Doe Sr." );

Phonephone=newPhone();
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 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

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