Can someone explain mappedBy in JPA and Hibernate?

Question

I am new to hibernate and need to use one-to-many and many-to-one relations. It is a bi-directional relationship in my objects, so that I can traverse from either direction. mappedBy is the recommended way to go about it, however, I couldn't understand it. Can someone explain:

• what is the recommended way to use it?
• what purpose does it solve?

For the sake of my example, here are my classes with annotations:

• Airline OWNS many AirlineFlights
• Many AirlineFlights belong to ONE Airline

Airline:

@Entity 
@Table(name="Airline")
public class Airline {
    private Integer idAirline;
    private String name;

    private String code;

    private String aliasName;
    private Set<AirlineFlight> airlineFlights = new HashSet<AirlineFlight>(0);

    public Airline(){}

    public Airline(String name, String code, String aliasName, Set<AirlineFlight> flights) {
        setName(name);
        setCode(code);
        setAliasName(aliasName);
        setAirlineFlights(flights);
    }

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    @Column(name="IDAIRLINE", nullable=false)
    public Integer getIdAirline() {
        return idAirline;
    }

    private void setIdAirline(Integer idAirline) {
        this.idAirline = idAirline;
    }

    @Column(name="NAME", nullable=false)
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = DAOUtil.convertToDBString(name);
    }

    @Column(name="CODE", nullable=false, length=3)
    public String getCode() {
        return code;
    }
    public void setCode(String code) {
        this.code = DAOUtil.convertToDBString(code);
    }

    @Column(name="ALIAS", nullable=true)
    public String getAliasName() {
        return aliasName;
    }
    public void setAliasName(String aliasName) {
        if(aliasName != null)
            this.aliasName = DAOUtil.convertToDBString(aliasName);
    }

    @OneToMany(fetch=FetchType.LAZY, cascade = {CascadeType.ALL})
    @JoinColumn(name="IDAIRLINE")
    public Set<AirlineFlight> getAirlineFlights() {
        return airlineFlights;
    }

    public void setAirlineFlights(Set<AirlineFlight> flights) {
        this.airlineFlights = flights;
    }
}

AirlineFlights:

@Entity
@Table(name="AirlineFlight")
public class AirlineFlight {
    private Integer idAirlineFlight;
    private Airline airline;
    private String flightNumber;

    public AirlineFlight(){}

    public AirlineFlight(Airline airline, String flightNumber) {
        setAirline(airline);
        setFlightNumber(flightNumber);
    }

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(generator="identity")
    @GenericGenerator(name="identity", strategy="identity")
    @Column(name="IDAIRLINEFLIGHT", nullable=false)
    public Integer getIdAirlineFlight() {
        return idAirlineFlight;
    }
    private void setIdAirlineFlight(Integer idAirlineFlight) {
        this.idAirlineFlight = idAirlineFlight;
    }

    @ManyToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
    @JoinColumn(name="IDAIRLINE", nullable=false)
    public Airline getAirline() {
        return airline;
    }
    public void setAirline(Airline airline) {
        this.airline = airline;
    }

    @Column(name="FLIGHTNUMBER", nullable=false)
    public String getFlightNumber() {
        return flightNumber;
    }
    public void setFlightNumber(String flightNumber) {
        this.flightNumber = DAOUtil.convertToDBString(flightNumber);
    }
}

EDIT:

Database schema:

AirlineFlights has the idAirline as ForeignKey and Airline has no idAirlineFlights. This makes, AirlineFlights as the owner/identifying entity ?

Theoretically, I would like airline to be the owner of airlineFlights.

Answer 1

By specifying the @JoinColumn on both models you don't have a two way relationship. You have two one way relationships, and a very confusing mapping of it at that. You're telling both models that they "own" the IDAIRLINE column. Really only one of them actually should! The 'normal' thing is to take the @JoinColumn off of the @OneToMany side entirely, and instead add mappedBy to the @OneToMany.

@OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, mappedBy="airline")
public Set<AirlineFlight> getAirlineFlights() {
    return airlineFlights;
}

That tells Hibernate "Go look over on the bean property named 'airline' on the thing I have a collection of to find the configuration."