Primary Keys in the order Application

The order application uses several types of primary keys: single-valued primary keys, compound primary keys, and generated primary keys.

Generated Primary Keys

VendorPart uses a generated primary key value. That is, the application does not assign primary key values for the entities but instead relies on the persistence provider to generate the primary key values. The @GeneratedValue annotation is used to specify that an entity will use a generated primary key.

In VendorPart, the following code specifies the settings for generating primary key values:

@TableGenerator(
    name="vendorPartGen",
    table="PERSISTENCE_ORDER_SEQUENCE_GENERATOR",
    pkColumnName="GEN_KEY",
    valueColumnName="GEN_VALUE",
    pkColumnValue="VENDOR_PART_ID",
    allocationSize=10)
@Id
@GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.TABLE,
    generator="vendorPartGen")
public Long getVendorPartNumber() {
    return vendorPartNumber;
}

The @TableGenerator annotation is used in conjunction with @GeneratedValue’s strategy=TABLE element. That is, the strategy used to generate the primary keys is to use a table in the database. The @TableGenerator annotation is used to configure the settings for the generator table. The name element sets the name of the generator, which is vendorPartGen in VendorPart.

The EJB_ORDER_SEQUENCE_GENERATOR table, whose two columns are GEN_KEY and GEN_VALUE, will store the generated primary key values. This table could be used to generate other entity’s primary keys, so the pkColumnValue element is set to VENDOR_PART_ID to distinguish this entity’s generated primary keys from other entity’s generated primary keys. The allocationSize element specifies the amount to increment when allocating primary key values. In this case, each VendorPart’s primary key will increment by 10.

The primary key field vendorPartNumber is of type Long, as the generated primary key’s field must be an integral type.

Compound Primary Keys

A compound primary key is made up of multiple fields and follows the requirements described in Primary Keys in Entities. To use a compound primary key, you must create a wrapper class.

In order, two entities use compound primary keys: Part and LineItem.

• Part uses the PartKey wrapper class. Part’s primary key is a combination of the part number and the revision number. PartKey encapsulates this primary key.

• LineItem uses the LineItemKey class. LineItem’s primary key is a combination of the order number and the item number. LineItemKey encapsulates this primary key.

This is the LineItemKey compound primary key wrapper class:

package order.entity;

public final class LineItemKey implements
             java.io.Serializable {

    private Integer orderId;
    private int itemId;

    public int hashCode() {
        return ((this.getOrderId()==null
                        ?0:this.getOrderId().hashCode())
                 ^ ((int) this.getItemId()));
    }

    public boolean equals(Object otherOb) {
        if (this == otherOb) {
            return true;
        }
        if (!(otherOb instanceof LineItemKey)) {
            return false;
        }
        LineItemKey other = (LineItemKey) otherOb;
        return ((this.getOrderId()==null
                        ?other.orderId==null:this.getOrderId().equals
                (other.orderId)) && (this.getItemId ==
                    other.itemId));
    }

    public String toString() {
        return "" + orderId + "-" + itemId;
    }
}

The @IdClass annotation is used to specify the primary key class in the entity class. In LineItem, @IdClass is used as follows:

@IdClass(order.entity.LineItemKey.class)
@Entity
...
public class LineItem {
...
}

The two fields in LineItem are tagged with the @Id annotation to mark those fields as part of the compound primary key:

@Id
public int getItemId() {
    return itemId;
}
...
@Id
@Column(name="ORDERID", nullable=false,
    insertable=false, updatable=false)
public Integer getOrderId() {
    return orderId;
}

For orderId, you also use the @Column annotation to specify the column name in the table and that this column should not be inserted or updated, as it is an overlapping foreign key pointing at the PERSISTENCE_ORDER_ORDER table’s ORDERID column (see One-to-Many Relationship Mapped to Overlapping Primary and Foreign Keys). That is, orderId will be set by the Order entity.

In LineItem’s constructor, the line item number (LineItem.itemId) is set using the Order.getNextId method:

public LineItem(Order order, int quantity, VendorPart
        vendorPart) {
    this.order = order;
    this.itemId = order.getNextId();
    this.orderId = order.getOrderId();
    this.quantity = quantity;
    this.vendorPart = vendorPart;
}

Order.getNextId counts the number of current line items, adds 1, and returns that number:

public int getNextId() {
    return this.lineItems.size() + 1;
}

Part doesn’t require the @Column annotation on the two fields that comprise Part’s compound primary key, because Part’s compound primary key is not an overlapping primary key/foreign key:

@IdClass(order.entity.PartKey.class)
@Entity
...
public class Part {
...
    @Id
    public String getPartNumber() {
        return partNumber;
    }
...
    @Id
    public int getRevision() {
        return revision;
    }
...
}