Referential integrity constraint violation on owner delete (OneToMany unidirectional)

Question

I'm having trouble deleting the owner object in a unidirectional OneToMany relationship.

The relevant bits are that I have three objects: Acronym, Expansion, and Tag.

• Acronym has a unidirectional OneToMany relationship with Expansion
• Expansion has a bidirectional ManyToMany relationship with Tag

Here's the code:

@Entity
public class Acronym extends Model {
    @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, orphanRemoval = true)
    @JoinColumn(name = "acronym_id")
    public Set<Expansion> expansions;
...
}

@Entity
public class Expansion extends Model {
    @ManyToMany
    public Set<Tag> tags;
...
}

@Entity
public class Tag extends Model {
    @ManyToMany(mappedBy = "tags")
    public Set<Expansion> expansions;
...
}

Now, when I try to delete an Acronym object I'm getting the following error:

[error] Test models.AcronymTest.testAsJSON failed: javax.persistence.PersistenceException: org.h2.jdbc.JdbcSQLException: Referential integrity constraint violation: "FK_EXPANSION_TAG_EXPANSION_01: PUBLIC.EXPANSION_TAG FOREIGN KEY(EXPANSION_ID) REFERENCES PUBLIC.EXPANSION(ID) (7)"; SQL statement:
[error] delete from expansion where acronym_id = ? [23503-168]
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.persist.ExeUpdateSql.execute(ExeUpdateSql.java:76)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.persist.DefaultPersistExecute.executeSqlUpdate(DefaultPersistExecute.java:125)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.core.PersistRequestUpdateSql.executeNow(PersistRequestUpdateSql.java:44)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.core.PersistRequest.executeStatement(PersistRequest.java:74)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.core.PersistRequestUpdateSql.executeOrQueue(PersistRequestUpdateSql.java:49)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.persist.DefaultPersister.executeSqlUpdate(DefaultPersister.java:147)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.persist.DefaultPersister.deleteManyDetails(DefaultPersister.java:1169)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.persist.DefaultPersister.deleteAssocMany(DefaultPersister.java:1143)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.persist.DefaultPersister.delete(DefaultPersister.java:624)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.persist.DefaultPersister.delete(DefaultPersister.java:452)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.core.DefaultServer.delete(DefaultServer.java:1867)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.core.DefaultServer.delete(DefaultServer.java:1857)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebean.Ebean.delete(Ebean.java:648)
[error]     at play.db.ebean.Model.delete(Model.java:167)
[error]     at models.AcronymTest.testAsJSON(AcronymTest.java:201)
[error]     ...
[error] Caused by: org.h2.jdbc.JdbcSQLException: Referential integrity constraint violation: "FK_EXPANSION_TAG_EXPANSION_01: PUBLIC.EXPANSION_TAG FOREIGN KEY(EXPANSION_ID) REFERENCES PUBLIC.EXPANSION(ID) (7)"; SQL statement:
[error] delete from expansion where acronym_id = ? [23503-168]
[error]     at org.h2.message.DbException.getJdbcSQLException(DbException.java:329)
[error]     at org.h2.message.DbException.get(DbException.java:169)
[error]     at org.h2.message.DbException.get(DbException.java:146)
[error]     at org.h2.constraint.ConstraintReferential.checkRow(ConstraintReferential.java:414)
[error]     at org.h2.constraint.ConstraintReferential.checkRowRefTable(ConstraintReferential.java:431)
[error]     at org.h2.constraint.ConstraintReferential.checkRow(ConstraintReferential.java:307)
[error]     at org.h2.table.Table.fireConstraints(Table.java:871)
[error]     at org.h2.table.Table.fireAfterRow(Table.java:888)
[error]     at org.h2.command.dml.Delete.update(Delete.java:99)
[error]     at org.h2.command.CommandContainer.update(CommandContainer.java:75)
[error]     at org.h2.command.Command.executeUpdate(Command.java:230)
[error]     at org.h2.jdbc.JdbcPreparedStatement.executeUpdateInternal(JdbcPreparedStatement.java:156)
[error]     at org.h2.jdbc.JdbcPreparedStatement.executeUpdate(JdbcPreparedStatement.java:142)
[error]     at com.jolbox.bonecp.PreparedStatementHandle.executeUpdate(PreparedStatementHandle.java:203)
[error]     at com.avaje.ebeaninternal.server.persist.ExeUpdateSql.execute(ExeUpdateSql.java:68)
[error]     ... 48 more

I've tried to read through the JPA 2.0 Specification and its sections on Relationship Mapping Defaults and included what I thought to be the relevant annotations given my object relationships but something just isn't working right. This application is built on the Java Play! framework (version 2.1.3) FYI.

Any thoughts on what I may be doing wrong?

NOTE:
The functionality I'm looking for is

• When you create/update/delete an Acronym, any associated Expansion(s) should also be created/updated/deleted

• When you delete an Expansion or a Tag, associated Tags or Expansions, respectively, should not be affected (a Tag can exist without an associated Expansion and vice versa)

Answer 1

When you delete an Acronym, it's associated Expansion objects get deleted. However, on the Tag table, there's a foreign key to the Expansion table, which prevents the Expansion from being deleted.

I suggest that you revisit your design and think carefully about the delete functionality and whether you really want the deletion of the Acronym to delete all the related Expansions and Tags. This doesn't seem like a realistic usecase.