Update for entities with oneToMany relatinship not working p

[navjeetc]

I have two entites User and Permissions with one to many relationship as below. In UserEntity ejb I have this code:

@OneToMany(mappedBy = "user", cascade = {CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.MERGE})
 public List<PermissionEntityEJB> getPermissions() {
 return this.permissions;
 }

And on permissions entity ejb I have this code for relationship:

@ManyToOne
 @JoinColumn(name = "USER_ID", nullable = false)
 public UserEntityEJB getUser() {
 return this.user;
 }

When I try to update the user's permissions I create a list of PermissionsEntity objects (that includes setting the user attribute to the current User Entity ejb) and then call the setter on User Entity ejb using syntax like below:

usrEntity.setPermissions(permissionsList)

After the committing of transaction in the database I see a new set permissions added on the user's current permissions. I was expecting to see in the database only the new set of permissions (the current/old set of permissions should have been deleted). Am I seeing the expected behavior or Am I doing something wrong or my relationship setup is not ok. Do I need to explicitly delete the current/old permissions myself before adding the new set of permissions?

-Navjeet

[waynebaylor]

are you saving using EntityManager.merge ?

[navjeetc]

I am not using merge as I am doing a find on the user first and then setting the new set of permissions on the user.

[carstenrudat]

Hi mohali,

I'm not quite sure, but I think you have to set a relationship on both ends:

for(PermissionEntityEJB permissionEntity : permissionsList) {
 permissionEntity.setUser(usrEntity);
}

Am I wrong?

[navjeetc]

And I am setting the user for the new permissions and it does persist the new permissions. The only issue is with permissions that were in the old set but not there in the new set of permissions. Do I have delete those explicitly or the container can be smart enough to replace the old set of permissions with the new set permissions (and this may include deleting some permissions that are no more there now)?