2.2.5. Mapping entity bean associations/relationships
2.2.5.1. One-to-one
You can associate entity beans through a one-to-one relationship using
@OneToOne. There are three cases for one-to-one associations: either the associated entities share the same primary keys values, a foreign key is held by one of the entities (note that this FK column in the database should be constrained unique to simulate one-to-one multiplicity), or a association table is used to store the link between the 2 entities (a unique constraint has to be defined on each fk to ensure the one to one multiplicity)
First, we map a real one-to-one association using shared primary keys:
@Entity
public class Body {
@Id
public Long getId() { return id; }
@OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
@PrimaryKeyJoinColumn
public Heart getHeart() {
return heart;
}
...
}
@Entity
public class Heart {
@Id
public Long getId() { ...}
}
The one to one is marked as true by using the
@PrimaryKeyJoinColumn annotation.
In the following example, the associated entities are linked through a foreign key column:
@Entity
public class Customer implements Serializable {
@OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
@JoinColumn(name="passport_fk")
public Passport getPassport() {
...
}
@Entity
public class Passport implements Serializable {
@OneToOne(mappedBy = "passport")
public Customer getOwner() {
...
}
A
Customer is linked to a Passport, with a foreign key column named passport_fk in the Customer table. The join column is declared with the @JoinColumn annotation which looks like the @Column annotation. It has one more parameters named referencedColumnName. This parameter declares the column in the targeted entity that will be used to the join. Note that when using referencedColumnNameSerializable. Also note that the referencedColumnName
The association may be bidirectional. In a bidirectional relationship, one of the sides (and only one) has to be the owner: the owner is responsible for the association column(s) update. To declare a side as not responsible for the relationship, the attribute
mappedBy is used. mappedBy refers to the property name of the association on the owner side. In our case, this is passport. As you can see, you don't have to (must not) declare the join column since it has already been declared on the owners side.
If no
@JoinColumn is declared on the owner side, the defaults apply. A join column(s) will be created in the owner table and its name will be the concatenation of the name of the relationship in the owner side, _ (underscore), and the name of the primary key column(s) in the owned side. In this example passport_id because the property name is passport and the column id of Passport is id.
The third possibility (using an association table) is very exotic.
@Entity
public class Customer implements Serializable {
@OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
@JoinTable(name = "CustomerPassports", joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name="customer_fk"), inverseJoinColumns = @JoinColumn(name="passport_fk")
)
public Passport getPassport() {
...
}
@Entity
public class Passport implements Serializable {
@OneToOne(mappedBy = "passport")
public Customer getOwner() {
...
}
A
Customer is linked to a Passport through a association table named CustomerPassports ; this association table has a foreign key column named passport_fk pointing to the Passport table (materialized by the inverseJoinColumn, and a foreign key column named customer_fk pointing to the Customer table materialized by the joinColumns attribute.
You must declare the join table name and the join columns explicitly in such a mapping.
