Hibernate @OneToMany remove child from list when updating parent

Question

I have the following entities:

TEAM

@Entity
@Table
public class Team {
[..]
private Set<UserTeamRole> userTeamRoles;

/**
 * @return the userTeamRoles
 */
@OneToMany(cascade = { CascadeType.ALL }, mappedBy = "team", fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
public Set<UserTeamRole> getUserTeamRoles() {
    return userTeamRoles;
}

/**
 * @param userTeamRoles
 *            the userTeamRoles to set
 */
public void setUserTeamRoles(Set<UserTeamRole> userTeamRoles) {
    this.userTeamRoles = userTeamRoles;
}

}

and

USER_TEAM_ROLE

@Entity
@Table(name = "user_team_role")
public class UserTeamRole {

 @ManyToOne(cascade = CascadeType.MERGE, fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
 @JoinColumn(name = "FK_TeamId")
 public Team getTeam() {
    return team;
 }
}

Now, when updating a Team entity that contains for example Team.userTeamRoles = {UTR1, UTR2} with {UTR1, UTR3}, I want UTR2 to be deleted. But the way I do it now, the old list remains the same and it only adds UTR3 to the list.

This is how I do it at the moment:

 if (!usersDualListData.getTarget().isEmpty()) {
        // the role for each user within the team will be "employee"
        team.setUserTeamRoles(new HashSet<UserTeamRole>());
        Role roleForUser = roleService
                .getRoleByName(RoleNames.ROLE_EMPLOYEE.name());
        for (User user : usersDualListData.getTarget()) {
            UserTeamRole utr = new UserTeamRole();
            utr.setUser(user);
            utr.setTeam(team);
            utr.setRole(roleForUser);
            team.getUserTeamRoles().add(utr);
        }
    }

teamService.updateTeam(team);

I thought that by doing team.setUserTeamRoles(new HashSet<UserTeamRole>()); the list would be reset and because of the cascades the previous list would be deleted.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you

Answer 1

1. Instead of replacing the collection (team.setUserTeamRoles(new HashSet<UserTeamRole>());) you have to clear() the existing one. This happens because if Hibernate loads the entity (and its collections) from DB, it "manages" them, ie. tracks their changes. Generally when using Hibernate it's better not to create any setters for collections (lists, sets). Create only the getter, and clear the collection returned by it, ie:

   team.getUserTeamRoles().clear();

2. Another thing is that you miss orphan deletion (ie. delete child object when it's removed from collection in the parent). To enable it, you need to add @OneToMany(orphanRemoval=true) in owning entity.