@OneToMany JPA Example

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

The @OneToMany association links a parent entity with one or more child entities. If the @OneToMany doesn’t have a mirroring @ManyToOne association on the child side, the @OneToMany association is unidirectional. If there is a @ManyToOne association on the child side, the @OneToMany association is bidirectional and the application developer can navigate this relationship from both ends.

In the below examples, we will use Hibernate as a JPA provider.

Check out complete one to many unidirectional tutorial at https://www.javaguides.net/2019/08/jpa-hibernate-one-to-many-bidirectional-mapping-example.html

Check out complete one-to-many bidirectional entity mapping at https://www.javaguides.net/2019/08/jpa-hibernate-one-to-many-bidirectional-mapping-example.html 

Unidirectional @OneToMany

When using a unidirectional @OneToMany association, Hibernate resorts to using a link table between the two joining entities.

Person.java

@Entity(name = "Person")
public static class Person {

	@Id
	@GeneratedValue
	private Long id;

	@OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, orphanRemoval = true)
	private List<Phone> phones = new ArrayList<>();

	//Getters and setters are omitted for brevity

}

Phone.java

@Entity(name = "Phone")
public static class Phone {

	@Id
	@GeneratedValue
	private Long id;

	@Column(name = "`number`")
	private String number;

	//Getters and setters are omitted for brevity

}

Here is the SQL script for database tables:

CREATE TABLE Person (
    id BIGINT NOT NULL ,
    PRIMARY KEY ( id )
)

CREATE TABLE Person_Phone (
    Person_id BIGINT NOT NULL ,
    phones_id BIGINT NOT NULL
)

CREATE TABLE Phone (
    id BIGINT NOT NULL ,
    number VARCHAR(255) ,
    PRIMARY KEY ( id )
)

ALTER TABLE Person_Phone
ADD CONSTRAINT UK_9uhc5itwc9h5gcng944pcaslf
UNIQUE (phones_id)

ALTER TABLE Person_Phone
ADD CONSTRAINT FKr38us2n8g5p9rj0b494sd3391
FOREIGN KEY (phones_id) REFERENCES Phone

ALTER TABLE Person_Phone
ADD CONSTRAINT FK2ex4e4p7w1cj310kg2woisjl2
FOREIGN KEY (Person_id) REFERENCES Person

The unidirectional associations are not very efficient when it comes to removing child entities. In this particular example, upon flushing the persistence context, Hibernate deletes all database child entries and reinserts the ones that are still found in the in-memory persistence context.

On the other hand, a bidirectional @OneToMany association is much more efficient because the child entity controls the association.

Bidirectional @OneToMany

The bidirectional @OneToMany association also requires a @ManyToOne association on the child side. Although the Domain Model exposes two sides to navigate this association, behind the scenes, the relational database has only one foreign key for this relationship.

Every bidirectional association must have one owning side only (the child side), the other one being referred to as the inverse (or the mappedBy) side.

Person.java

@Entity(name = "Person")
public static class Person {

	@Id
	@GeneratedValue
	private Long id;

	@OneToMany(mappedBy = "person", cascade = CascadeType.ALL, orphanRemoval = true)
	private List<Phone> phones = new ArrayList<>();

	//Getters and setters are omitted for brevity

	public void addPhone(Phone phone) {
		phones.add( phone );
		phone.setPerson( this );
	}

	public void removePhone(Phone phone) {
		phones.remove( phone );
		phone.setPerson( null );
	}
}

Phone.java

@Entity(name = "Phone")
public static class Phone {

	@Id
	@GeneratedValue
	private Long id;

	@NaturalId
	@Column(name = "`number`", unique = true)
	private String number;

	@ManyToOne
	private Person person;

	//Getters and setters are omitted for brevity

	@Override
	public boolean equals(Object o) {
		if ( this == o ) {
			return true;
		}
		if ( o == null || getClass() != o.getClass() ) {
			return false;
		}
		Phone phone = (Phone) o;
		return Objects.equals( number, phone.number );
	}

	@Override
	public int hashCode() {
		return Objects.hash( number );
	}
}

Here is the SQL script for database tables:

CREATE TABLE Person (
    id BIGINT NOT NULL ,
    PRIMARY KEY ( id )
)

CREATE TABLE Phone (
    id BIGINT NOT NULL ,
    number VARCHAR(255) ,
    person_id BIGINT ,
    PRIMARY KEY ( id )
)

ALTER TABLE Phone
ADD CONSTRAINT UK_l329ab0g4c1t78onljnxmbnp6
UNIQUE (number)

ALTER TABLE Phone
ADD CONSTRAINT FKmw13yfsjypiiq0i1osdkaeqpg
FOREIGN KEY (person_id) REFERENCES Person

References

https://javaee.github.io/javaee-spec/javadocs/javax/persistence/OneToMany.html.

https://www.javaguides.net/2019/08/jpa-hibernate-one-to-many-bidirectional-mapping-example.html

https://www.javaguides.net/2019/08/jpa-hibernate-one-to-many-bidirectional-mapping-example.html