Hibernate: lazy collections and session.merge

Question

What I have:

I need to update my entity . I use Hibernatee conversation, that means that we already have entity in the session cache.

public void handle(Request request, Session session) {
  MyEntity updatedEntity = request.getEntity();
  session.merge(updatedEntity); //rewrite all lazy collections
}

So I send object to client, client full up the object and send it back for update.

What the problem:

Lazy collections aren't sent to the client. As a result, if lazy collection hasn't been empty, than it will be overriden in session.merge(updatedEntity) string

It happens because client knows nothing about element in those collections

Question:

How two merge entity in correct way? Means without rewriting lazy collections.

EDIT:(how I work with my collections)

public class MyEntity {
  @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, fetch = FetchType.EAGER, orphanRemoval = true)
  @JoinColumn(name = "entity_id")
  private List<AnotherEntity> anotherEntities;


  public void setAnotherEntities(List<AnotherEntity> anotherEntities) {
    // we must work with the same instance of list (again, because of orphanRemoval)
    this.anotherEntities.clear();
    this.anotherEntities.addAll(anotherEntities);
  }
}

Answer 1

I think that CascadeType.ALL is the problem

You may use instead

 cascade = {CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.REFRESH, CascadeType.DELETE})

You may also add to this set any other cascade option you need.