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JPA - Persisting a Map of basic type keys and @Embeddable values

[Last Updated: Jun 6, 2017]
JPA - A quick overview of Map with basic keys and embeddable values
  • Just like the Map of basic type keys and basic values, a Map of basic type keys and embeddable values can be persisted by using @ElementCollection on the Map reference in the entity class.
  • The corresponding class of the map values, must have @Embeddable annotation.
  • The Entity and the Map are mapped to two separate foreign/primary-key tables. One for the entity and other for keys and embeddable fields/properties values. The Map table has the foreign key pointing to the primary key of the entity.
  • By default, JPA specific naming conventions are used for the mapping. We can customize that by using; @CollectionTable annotation and @MapKeyColumn along with @ElementCollection (check out our last tutorials for quick details).
  • Note that all cases of @Embeddable class are applied here: we can use an embeddable class within another one, the embeddable can have entity relationship, and/or we can also use multiple instances of the maps having same embeddable values in our entity.

Example

@Entity
public class Customer {
  @Id
  @GeneratedValue
  private int id;
  private String name;
  @ElementCollection
  @CollectionTable(name = "ORDERS")
  @MapKeyColumn(name = "TYPE")
  private Map<String, Order> orderMap;
    .............
}
@Embeddable
public class Order {
  private String item;
  private int qty;
  private Date date;
    .............
}
public class ExampleMain {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
      EntityManagerFactory emf = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("example-unit");
      try {
          EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();
          nativeQuery(em, "SHOW TABLES");
          nativeQuery(em, "SHOW COLUMNS from Customer");
          nativeQuery(em, "SHOW COLUMNS from ORDERS");
      } finally {
          emf.close();
      }
  }
    .............
}

Output

'SHOW TABLES'
[CUSTOMER, PUBLIC]
[ORDERS, PUBLIC]
'SHOW COLUMNS from Customer'
[ID, INTEGER(10), NO, PRI, NULL]
[NAME, VARCHAR(255), YES, , NULL]
'SHOW COLUMNS from ORDERS'
[CUSTOMER_ID, INTEGER(10), NO, PRI, NULL]
[DATE, TIMESTAMP(23), YES, , NULL]
[ITEM, VARCHAR(255), YES, , NULL]
[QTY, INTEGER(10), NO, , NULL]
[TYPE, VARCHAR(255), NO, PRI, NULL]

A quick overview (with the default column/table names):

Persisting and loading data

public class ExampleMain2 {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
      EntityManagerFactory emf = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("example-unit");
      try {
          persistEntity(emf);
          runNativeQueries(emf);
          loadEntity(emf);
      } finally {
          emf.close();
      }
  }

  private static void persistEntity(EntityManagerFactory emf) {
      System.out.println("-- Persisting entities --");
      EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();

      Customer c1 = new Customer();
      c1.setName("Lindsey Craft");
      c1.addOrder("online", "XYZ Blender", 2);
      c1.addOrder("store", "ZZZ Beer Glass", 4);
      System.out.println(c1);

      Customer c2 = new Customer();
      c2.setName("Morgan Philips");
      c2.addOrder("online", "AA Glass Cleaner", 3);
      System.out.println(c2);

      em.getTransaction().begin();
      em.persist(c1);
      em.persist(c2);
      em.getTransaction().commit();
      em.close();
  }

  private static void runNativeQueries(EntityManagerFactory emf) {
      System.out.println("-- Native queries --");
      EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();
      ExampleMain.nativeQuery(em, "Select * from Customer");
      ExampleMain.nativeQuery(em, "Select * from Orders");
  }

  private static void loadEntity(EntityManagerFactory emf) {
      System.out.println("-- Loading Customer --");
      EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();
      List<Customer> entityAList = em.createQuery("Select t from Customer t")
                                     .getResultList();
      entityAList.forEach(System.out::println);
      em.close();
  }
}

Output

-- Persisting entities --
Customer{id=0, name='Lindsey Craft', orderMap={online=Order{item='XYZ Blender', qty=2, date=Wed May 31 15:21:00 CDT 2017}, store=Order{item='ZZZ Beer Glass', qty=4, date=Wed May 31 15:21:00 CDT 2017}}}
Customer{id=0, name='Morgan Philips', orderMap={online=Order{item='AA Glass Cleaner', qty=3, date=Wed May 31 15:21:00 CDT 2017}}}
-- Native queries --
'Select * from Customer'
[1, Lindsey Craft]
[2, Morgan Philips]
'Select * from Orders'
[1, 2017-05-31 15:21:00.363, XYZ Blender, 2, online]
[1, 2017-05-31 15:21:00.363, ZZZ Beer Glass, 4, store]
[2, 2017-05-31 15:21:00.366, AA Glass Cleaner, 3, online]
-- Loading Customer --
Customer{id=1, name='Lindsey Craft', orderMap={online=Order{item='XYZ Blender', qty=2, date=2017-05-31 15:21:00.363}, store=Order{item='ZZZ Beer Glass', qty=4, date=2017-05-31 15:21:00.363}}}
Customer{id=2, name='Morgan Philips', orderMap={online=Order{item='AA Glass Cleaner', qty=3, date=2017-05-31 15:21:00.366}}}

Example Project

Dependencies and Technologies Used:

  • h2 1.4.193: H2 Database Engine.
  • hibernate-core 5.2.8.Final: The core O/RM functionality as provided by Hibernate.
    Implements javax.persistence:javax.persistence-api version 2.1
  • JDK 1.8
  • Maven 3.3.9

Embeddable Values Map Example Select All Download
  • map-with-embeddable-values
    • src
      • main
        • java
          • com
            • logicbig
              • example
                • Customer.java
          • resources
            • META-INF

    See Also