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

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

It's the only solution to map a ManyToMany association : you need a join table between the two entities tables to map the association.

It's also used for OneToMany (usually unidirectional) associations when you don't want to add a foreign key in the table of the many side and thus keep it independent of the one side.

Search for @JoinTable in the hibernate documentation for explanations and examples.

@ManyToMany associations

Most often, you will need to use @JoinTable annotation to specify the mapping of a many-to-many table relationship:

• the name of the link table and
• the two Foreign Key columns

So, assuming you have the following database tables:

In the Post entity, you would map this relationship, like this:

@ManyToMany(cascade = {
    CascadeType.PERSIST,
    CascadeType.MERGE
})
@JoinTable(
    name = "post_tag",
    joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name = "post_id"),
    inverseJoinColumns = @JoinColumn(name = "tag_id")
)
private List<Tag> tags = new ArrayList<>();

The @JoinTable annotation is used to specify the table name via the name attribute, as well as the Foreign Key column that references the post table (e.g., joinColumns) and the Foreign Key column in the post_tag link table that references the Tag entity via the inverseJoinColumns attribute.

Notice that the cascade attribute of the @ManyToMany annotation is set to PERSIST and MERGE only because cascading REMOVE is a bad idea since we the DELETE statement will be issued for the other parent record, tag in our case, not to the post_tag record.

Unidirectional @OneToMany associations

The unidirectional @OneToMany associations, that lack a @JoinColumn mapping, behave like many-to-many table relationships, rather than one-to-many.

So, assuming you have the following entity mappings:

@Entity(name = "Post")
@Table(name = "post")
public class Post {
 
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private Long id;
 
    private String title;
 
    @OneToMany(
        cascade = CascadeType.ALL,
        orphanRemoval = true
    )
    private List<PostComment> comments = new ArrayList<>();
 
    //Constructors, getters and setters removed for brevity
}
 
@Entity(name = "PostComment")
@Table(name = "post_comment")
public class PostComment {
 
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private Long id;
 
    private String review;
 
    //Constructors, getters and setters removed for brevity
}

Hibernate will assume the following database schema for the above entity mapping:

As already explained, the unidirectional @OneToMany JPA mapping behaves like a many-to-many association.

To customize the link table, you can also use the @JoinTable annotation:

@OneToMany(
    cascade = CascadeType.ALL,
    orphanRemoval = true
)
@JoinTable(
    name = "post_comment_ref",
    joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name = "post_id"),
    inverseJoinColumns = @JoinColumn(name = "post_comment_id")
)
private List<PostComment> comments = new ArrayList<>();

And now, the link table is going to be called post_comment_ref and the Foreign Key columns will be post_id, for the post table, and post_comment_id, for the post_comment table.

Unidirectional @OneToMany associations are not efficient, so you are better off using bidirectional @OneToMany associations or just the @ManyToOne side.

It lets you handle Many to Many relationship. Example:

Table 1: post

post has following columns
____________________
|  ID     |  DATE   |
|_________|_________|
|         |         |
|_________|_________|

Table 2: user

user has the following columns:

____________________
|     ID  |NAME     |
|_________|_________|
|         |         |
|_________|_________|

Join Table lets you create a mapping using:

@JoinTable(
  name="USER_POST",
  joinColumns=@JoinColumn(name="USER_ID", referencedColumnName="ID"),
  inverseJoinColumns=@JoinColumn(name="POST_ID", referencedColumnName="ID"))

will create a table:

____________________
|  USER_ID| POST_ID |
|_________|_________|
|         |         |
|_________|_________|

It's also cleaner to use @JoinTable when an Entity could be the child in several parent/child relationships with different types of parents. To follow up with Behrang's example, imagine a Task can be the child of Project, Person, Department, Study, and Process.

Should the task table have 5 nullable foreign key fields? I think not...