@ManyToMany JPA Example

The @ManyToMany annotation is used to specify a many-to-many database relationship.

In many-to-many association, the source entity has a field that stores a collection of target entities.

A many-to-many association always uses an intermediate join table to store the association that joins two entities. The join table is defined using the @JoinTable JPA annotation.

@ManyToMany - JPA Annotation Example

Consider the following tables where employees and projects exhibit a many-to-many relationship between each other -
The many-to-many relationship is implemented using a third table called employees_projects which contains the details of the employees and their associated projects.

Let's create JPA entities that we map with database tables. We use @ManyToMany annotation to create a many-to-many relationship between two entities. In a bi-directional association, the @ManyToMany annotation is used on both the entities but only one entity can be the owner of the relationship.

Employee

import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;

import javax.persistence.CascadeType;
import javax.persistence.Column;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import javax.persistence.GenerationType;
import javax.persistence.Id;
import javax.persistence.JoinColumn;
import javax.persistence.JoinTable;
import javax.persistence.ManyToMany;
import javax.persistence.Table;

@Entity
@Table(name = "employees")
public class Employee {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    @Id
    @Column(name = "employee_id")
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long employeeId;

    @Column(name = "first_name")
    private String firstName;

    @Column(name = "last_name")
    private String lastName;

    @ManyToMany(cascade = {
        CascadeType.ALL
    })
    @JoinTable(
        name = "employees_projects",
        joinColumns = {
            @JoinColumn(name = "employee_id")
        },
        inverseJoinColumns = {
            @JoinColumn(name = "project_id")
        }
    )
    Set < Project > projects = new HashSet < Project > ();


    public Employee() {
        super();
    }

    public Employee(String firstName, String lastName) {
        this.firstName = firstName;
        this.lastName = lastName;
    }

    public Employee(String firstName, String lastName, Set < Project > projects) {
        this.firstName = firstName;
        this.lastName = lastName;
        this.projects = projects;
    }


    public Long getEmployeeId() {
        return employeeId;
    }

    public void setEmployeeId(Long employeeId) {
        this.employeeId = employeeId;
    }

    public String getFirstName() {
        return firstName;
    }

    public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
        this.firstName = firstName;
    }

    public String getLastName() {
        return lastName;
    }

    public void setLastName(String lastName) {
        this.lastName = lastName;
    }

    public Set < Project > getProjects() {
        return projects;
    }

    public void setProjects(Set < Project > projects) {
        this.projects = projects;
    }
}

Project

import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;

import javax.persistence.CascadeType;
import javax.persistence.Column;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import javax.persistence.Id;
import javax.persistence.ManyToMany;
import javax.persistence.Table;

@Entity
@Table(name = "projects")
public class Project {

 private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    @Id
    @Column(name = "project_id")
    @GeneratedValue
    private Long projectId;

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

    @ManyToMany(mappedBy = "projects", cascade = { CascadeType.ALL })
    private Set<Employee> employees = new HashSet<Employee>();
    
    public Project() {
        super();
    }

    public Project(String title) {
        this.title = title;
    }

    public Long getProjectId() {
        return projectId;
    }

    public void setProjectId(Long projectId) {
        this.projectId = projectId;
    }

    public String getTitle() {
        return title;
    }

    public void setTitle(String title) {
        this.title = title;
    }

    public Set<Employee> getEmployees() {
        return employees;
    }

    public void setEmployees(Set<Employee> employees) {
        this.employees = employees;
    }
}
Let's understand the JPA annotations used in above JPA entities.

@ManyToMany - The @ManyToMany annotation is used to specify a many-to-many database relationship.
@JoinColumn - The @JoinColumn annotation is used to specify the FOREIGN KEY column used when joining an entity association or an embeddable collection.
@JoinColumns - The @JoinColumns annotation is used to group multiple @JoinColumn annotations, which are used when mapping entity association or an embeddable collection using a composite identifier
@JoinTable - The @JoinTable annotation is used to specify the link table between two other database tables.

References


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