Hibernate :Save Parent automatically before saving Child

Question

I have a parent-child relationship:

@Entity
@Table(name = "user")
public final class User
{
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Integer userID;

    @Column(name = "username")
    private String userName;

    @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, mappedBy = "admin")
    private Set<News> news;
}

@Entity
@Table(name = "news")
public final class News
{
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private int newsID;

    @ManyToOne(cascade = CascadeType.PERSIST)
    @JoinColumn(name = "userID")
    private User admin;

    @Column(name = "newsText")
    private String newsText;

    @Column(name = "dateOfPost")
    private Date dateOfPost;
}

Here User is the parent and News is the child. The reason that I have the cascade operations such is because I want all News objects to be deleted/persisted when I delete/persist the corresponding User . Also when I persist a News object I want the corresponding User to be persisted [but not deleted if the News is deleted]. I have a service method that saves a News object as follows:

User u = new User("administrator");
News n = new News("News text");
n.setUser(u);       
u.addNews(n);

session.save(n);

For the above code I get the following exception:

org.hibernate.exception.ConstraintViolationException: could not insert: [com.maximus.db.model.News]
    at org.hibernate.exception.SQLStateConverter.convert(SQLStateConverter.java:96)
    at org.hibernate.exception.JDBCExceptionHelper.convert(JDBCExceptionHelper.java:66)
    at org.hibernate.id.insert.AbstractReturningDelegate.performInsert(AbstractReturningDelegate.java:64)
    at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.insert(AbstractEntityPersister.java:2345)
    at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.insert(AbstractEntityPersister.java:2852)
    at org.hibernate.action.EntityIdentityInsertAction.execute(EntityIdentityInsertAction.java:71)
    at org.hibernate.engine.ActionQueue.execute(ActionQueue.java:273)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.AbstractSaveEventListener.performSaveOrReplicate(AbstractSaveEventListener.java:320)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.AbstractSaveEventListener.performSave(AbstractSaveEventListener.java:203)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.AbstractSaveEventListener.saveWithGeneratedId(AbstractSaveEventListener.java:129)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.DefaultSaveOrUpdateEventListener.saveWithGeneratedOrRequestedId(DefaultSaveOrUpdateEventListener.java:210)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.DefaultSaveEventListener.saveWithGeneratedOrRequestedId(DefaultSaveEventListener.java:56)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.DefaultSaveOrUpdateEventListener.entityIsTransient(DefaultSaveOrUpdateEventListener.java:195)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.DefaultSaveEventListener.performSaveOrUpdate(DefaultSaveEventListener.java:50)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.DefaultSaveOrUpdateEventListener.onSaveOrUpdate(DefaultSaveOrUpdateEventListener.java:93)
    at org.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl.fireSave(SessionImpl.java:713)
    at org.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl.save(SessionImpl.java:701)
    at org.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl.save(SessionImpl.java:697)
    at com.maximus.db.dao.NewsDAOImpl.addNews(NewsDAOImpl.java:17)
    at com.maximus.db.service.NewsServiceImpl.addNews(NewsServiceImpl.java:31)
    at com.maximus.test.db.service.NewsServiceTest.testAddNewsWithNewUser(NewsServiceTest.java:36)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.TestMethodRunner.executeMethodBody(TestMethodRunner.java:99)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.TestMethodRunner.runUnprotected(TestMethodRunner.java:81)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.BeforeAndAfterRunner.runProtected(BeforeAndAfterRunner.java:34)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.TestMethodRunner.runMethod(TestMethodRunner.java:75)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.TestMethodRunner.run(TestMethodRunner.java:45)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.TestClassMethodsRunner.invokeTestMethod(TestClassMethodsRunner.java:66)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.TestClassMethodsRunner.run(TestClassMethodsRunner.java:35)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.TestClassRunner$1.runUnprotected(TestClassRunner.java:42)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.BeforeAndAfterRunner.runProtected(BeforeAndAfterRunner.java:34)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.TestClassRunner.run(TestClassRunner.java:52)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.run(JUnit4TestReference.java:50)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.TestExecution.run(TestExecution.java:38)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:467)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:683)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:390)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:197)
Caused by: com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.MySQLIntegrityConstraintViolationException: Column 'userId' cannot be null
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Unknown Source)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.Util.handleNewInstance(Util.java:409)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.Util.getInstance(Util.java:384)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.SQLError.createSQLException(SQLError.java:1041)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.checkErrorPacket(MysqlIO.java:3566)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.checkErrorPacket(MysqlIO.java:3498)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.sendCommand(MysqlIO.java:1959)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.sqlQueryDirect(MysqlIO.java:2113)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.ConnectionImpl.execSQL(ConnectionImpl.java:2568)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.PreparedStatement.executeInternal(PreparedStatement.java:2113)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.PreparedStatement.executeUpdate(PreparedStatement.java:2409)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.PreparedStatement.executeUpdate(PreparedStatement.java:2327)
    at com.mysql.jdbc.PreparedStatement.executeUpdate(PreparedStatement.java:2312)
    at org.hibernate.id.IdentityGenerator$GetGeneratedKeysDelegate.executeAndExtract(IdentityGenerator.java:94)
    at org.hibernate.id.insert.AbstractReturningDelegate.performInsert(AbstractReturningDelegate.java:57)
    ... 38 more

What could be the issue here?

Am I incorrect in having a service method that tries to save a child? Should I always save the parent instead?

Thanks.

UPDATE: If I instead save the user as session.save(u) instead of the news, everything is fine. So the question that remains is, is it incorrect to save the child instead of the parent? If not, then how do I achieve it?

Answer 1

You have to do following things.These are:-

• Remove cascade option from news side.
• In your use case you have brand new news item and new user.Why you want to persist news item. Persist user object. Both will be persisted.
• In another use case where you have existing user and you want to add a new news item. In the service /dao implementation create a method for persisting the news object passing user id. Then you can use load/get to associate the use and persist the news item

Answer 2

I believe you don't need to set cascade in child side. Simply have Cascade.ALL on parent side (User.news) should be enough.

One more thing, if you are going to delete news when user is deleted (as u mentioned in your post), I believe you need to add the cascade type Delete Orphan on parent side too.