Removing Entity Instances

Managed entity instances are removed by invoking the remove method, or by a cascading remove operation invoked from related entities that have the cascade=REMOVE or cascade=ALL elements set in the relationship annotation. If the remove method is invoked on a new entity, the remove operation is ignored, although remove will cascade to related entities that have the cascade element set to REMOVE or ALL in the relationship annotation. If remove is invoked on a detached entity it will throw an IllegalArgumentException, or the transaction commit will fail. If remove is invoked on an already removed entity, it will be ignored. The entity’s data will be removed from the data store when the transaction is completed, or as a result of the flush operation.

public void removeOrder(Integer orderId) {
    try {
        Order order = em.find(Order.class, orderId);
        em.remove(order);
    }...

In this example, all LineItem entities associated with the order are also removed, as Order.getLineItems has cascade=ALL set in the relationship annotation.