UnsupportedOperationException merge-saving many-to-many relation with hibernate and JPA

hibernate jpa many-to-many
Pete picture Pete · Sep 15, 2011 · Viewed 16.3k times · Source

I've set up a simple many-to-many relationship account : role with Hibernate but when I try to save an account in a unit test after it has had its role added I get an UnsupportedOperationException:

java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException
    at java.util.AbstractList.remove(AbstractList.java:144)
    at java.util.AbstractList$Itr.remove(AbstractList.java:360)
    at java.util.AbstractList.removeRange(AbstractList.java:559)
    at java.util.AbstractList.clear(AbstractList.java:217)
    at org.hibernate.type.CollectionType.replaceElements(CollectionType.java:502)
    at org.hibernate.type.CollectionType.replace(CollectionType.java:582)
    at org.hibernate.type.TypeHelper.replace(TypeHelper.java:178)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.DefaultMergeEventListener.copyValues(DefaultMergeEventListener.java:563)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.DefaultMergeEventListener.entityIsPersistent(DefaultMergeEventListener.java:288)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.DefaultMergeEventListener.onMerge(DefaultMergeEventListener.java:261)
    at org.hibernate.event.def.DefaultMergeEventListener.onMerge(DefaultMergeEventListener.java:84)
    at org.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl.fireMerge(SessionImpl.java:867)
    at org.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl.merge(SessionImpl.java:851)
    at org.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl.merge(SessionImpl.java:855)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.AbstractEntityManagerImpl.merge(AbstractEntityManagerImpl.java:686)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.SharedEntityManagerCreator$SharedEntityManagerInvocationHandler.invoke(SharedEntityManagerCreator.java:240)
    at $Proxy33.merge(Unknown Source)
    at org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.support.SimpleJpaRepository.save(SimpleJpaRepository.java:360)
    at ....JpaProvider.save(JpaProvider.java:161)
    at ....DataModelTest.testAccountRole(DataModelTest.java:47)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod$1.runReflectiveCall(FrameworkMethod.java:44)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.model.ReflectiveCallable.run(ReflectiveCallable.java:15)
    at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod.invokeExplosively(FrameworkMethod.java:41)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.InvokeMethod.evaluate(InvokeMethod.java:20)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunBefores.evaluate(RunBefores.java:28)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunBeforeTestMethodCallbacks.evaluate(RunBeforeTestMethodCallbacks.java:74)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunAfterTestMethodCallbacks.evaluate(RunAfterTestMethodCallbacks.java:82)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.SpringRepeat.evaluate(SpringRepeat.java:72)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:240)
    at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:49)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$3.run(ParentRunner.java:193)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$1.schedule(ParentRunner.java:52)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runChildren(ParentRunner.java:191)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.access$000(ParentRunner.java:42)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$2.evaluate(ParentRunner.java:184)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunBeforeTestClassCallbacks.evaluate(RunBeforeTestClassCallbacks.java:61)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunAfterTestClassCallbacks.evaluate(RunAfterTestClassCallbacks.java:70)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.run(ParentRunner.java:236)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.run(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:180)
    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)

What's going wrong here? Is my entity setup faulty or is this a hibernate or JPA limitation forcing me to split apart my m:m relationship into 3 1:n relations modeling the m:n relationship table as well (which I wanted to avoid since it does not have any additional information). I've modeled other 1:n entities in my prototype and that seemed to work out nicely so far...

Here's my setup, any thoughts whether it might be faulty are appreciated.

Entities (simplified):

@Entity
@Table(name="account")
public class Account extends AbstractPersistable<Long> {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 627519641892468240L;

    private String username;


    @ManyToMany
    @JoinTable( name = "account_roles", 
                joinColumns = { @JoinColumn(name = "account_id")}, 
                inverseJoinColumns={@JoinColumn(name="role_id")})  
    private List<Role> roles;   


    public List<Role> getRoles() {
        return roles;
    }
    public void setRoles(List<Role> roles) {
        this.roles = roles;
    }



    @Entity
    @Table(name="role")
    public class Role extends AbstractPersistable<Long> {

        private static final long serialVersionUID = 8127092070228048914L;

        private String name;

        @ManyToMany
        @JoinTable( name = "account_roles",   
                    joinColumns={@JoinColumn(name="role_id")},   
                    inverseJoinColumns={@JoinColumn(name="account_id")})  
        private List<Account> accounts;


        public List<Account> getAccounts() {
            return accounts;
        }

        public void setAccounts(List<Account> accounts) {
            this.accounts = accounts;
        }

Unit Test:

@TransactionConfiguration
@ContextConfiguration({"classpath:dw-security-context-test.xml"})
@Transactional
@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
public class DataModelTest {

    @Inject
    private AccountProvider accountProvider;    

    @Inject 
    private RoleProvider roleProvider;

    @Before
    public void mockAccountRolePermission(){
        Account account = MockAccount.getSavedInstance(accountProvider);
        Role role = MockRole.getSavedInstance(roleProvider);
    }

    @Test
    public void testAccountRole(){      
        Account returnedAccount = accountProvider.findAll().get(0);
        returnedAccount.setRoles(Arrays.asList(roleProvider.findAll().get(0)));
        accountProvider.save(returnedAccount);

    }
}

MockAccount (same for MockRole):

public class MockAccount {

    public static Account getInstance(){
        Account account = new Account();
        account.setUsername(RandomData.rndStr("userName-", 5));
        return account;
    }

    public static Account getSavedInstance(AccountProvider accountProvider){
        Account account = getInstance();
        accountProvider.save(account);
        return account;
    }

}

And finally the Provider:

@Repository
public class AccountProvider extends JpaProvider<Account, Long> {

}

where JPAProvider just wraps a lot of JPARepository methods (at least as far as it is important in this case):

public abstract class JpaProvider<T extends Object, ID extends Serializable> implements JpaRepository<T, ID>, JpaSpecificationExecutor<T>, QueryDslPredicateExecutor<T> {
...
}

Any Ideas on why the save might be an UnsupportedOperation?

Answer

Lukas Eder picture Lukas Eder · Sep 15, 2011

It is because of your

Arrays.asList(roleProvider.findAll().get(0))

This creates an unmodifiable list (in fact, a non-resizable list). Hibernate seems to expect a modifiable list. Try using this instead:

public void testAccountRole(){      
    Account returnedAccount = accountProvider.findAll().get(0);

    List<Role> list = new ArrayList<Role>();
    list.add(roleProvider.findAll().get(0));    
    returnedAccount.setRoles(list);  

    accountProvider.save(returnedAccount);
}

This solution won't explain why exactly you got the other exception (might be documented in the Hibernate docs), but it might be a valid workaround.

Related questions

In which case do you use the JPA @JoinTable annotation?

In which case do you use the JPA @JoinTable annotation?

Read More
Mapping many-to-many association table with extra column(s)

My database contains 3 tables: User and Service entities have many-to-many relationship and are joined with the SERVICE_USER table as follows: USERS - SERVICE_USER - SERVICES SERVICE_USER table contains additional BLOCKED column. What is the best way to …

Read More
JPA Hibernate many-to-many cascading

I am using JPA 2.0 and hibernate. I have a User class and a Group class as follows: public class User implements Serializable { @Id @Column(name="USER_ID") private String userId; @ManyToMany @JoinTable(name = "USER_GROUP", joinColumns = { @JoinColumn(name = "GROUP_ID") }, …

Read More