How to map a myBatis result to multiple objects? - orm

Is it possible in myBatis 3 to map a single result to multiple objects, ensuring that the objects all reference the same instance? Is there an example of this I could reference?
Updated to add more detail:
For instance, let's say I store information regarding Contacts for my application in my DB. I want to know if it's possible to use myBatis to map the same instance of a contact to, say, a Listing class, which holds a Contact:
public class Listing {
private Contact myContact;
//getters & setters...
}
as well as to a ContactsHolder class, which also holds a Contact:
public class ContactsHolder {
private Contact aContact
//getters & setters...
}
I need the object that is mapped by myBatis to both the Listing and ContactsHolder classes to be the same instance. Is this possible?

No, MyBatis isn't able to do that with standard result mapping. (at least to my knowledge). You could select the "Contact" object, then build a Listing and ContactsHolder manually with both of them referencing the Contact.
Or implement a custom ResultSetHandler.
It's kind of a peculiar request, I'm not sure why you want the same instances shared across two objects like that. That's probably why no feature like this exists in MyBatis 3.

This can be done with standard result mapping if you use select to fetch the associated contact and both objects are fetched in the same session.
Modify result maps for Listing and ContactsHolder:
<resultMap type="Listing" id="listingMap">
<association property="myContact" column="contact_id" javaType="Contact" select="selectContact"/>
</resultMap>
<resultMap type="ContactsHolder" id="contactsHolderMap">
<association property="aContact" column="contact_id" javaType="Contact" select="selectContact"/>
</resultMap>
Now create a query selectContact:
<select id='selectContact' resultType='Contact'>
SELECT * from contact where id = #{id}
</select>
Now if you create some select that uses both listingMap and contactsHolderMap to map Listing and ContactsHolder records that reference the same contact they will both query for the contact using the same id.
Mybatis uses local cache for all objects read in a session so during fetching of the second associated contact the cache will be hit and the same object will be reused.
Even if you do two queries manually to get Listing and ContactsHolder in the same transaction the same Contact will be used in both returned objects.

Related

Need a concept on fetching data with HQL while three or more tables are in use

A small briefing on what I am trying to do.
I have three tables Content(contentId, body, timeofcreation), ContentAttachmentMap(contentId, attachmentId) and Attachment(attachmentId, resourceLocation).
The reason I adopted to create the mapping table because in future application the attachment can also be shared with different content.
Now I am using HQL to get data. My objectives is as follows:
Get All contents with/without Attachments
I have seen some examples in the internet like you can create an objective specific class (not POJO) and put the attribute name from the select statement within its constructor and the List of that Class object is returned.
For e.g. the HQL will be SELECT new com.mydomain.myclass(cont.id, cont.body) ..... and so on.
In my case I am looking for the following SELECT new com.mydomain.contentClass(cont.id, cont.body, List<Attachment>) FROM ...`. Yes, I want to have the resultList contain contentid, contentbody and List of its Attachments as a single result List item. If there are no attachments then it will return (cont.id, contentbody, null).
Is this possible? Also tell me how to write the SQL statements.
Thanks in advance.
I feel you are using Hibernate in a fundamentally wrong way. You should use Hibernate to view your domain entity, not to use it as exposing the underlying table.
You don't need to have that contentClass special value object for all these. Simply selecting the Content entity serves what you need.
I think it will be easier to have actual example.
In your application, you are not seeing it as "3 tables", you should see it as 2 entities, which is something look like:
#Entity
public class Content {
#Id
Long id;
#Column(...)
String content;
#ManyToMany
#JoinTable(name="ContentAttachmentMap")
List<Attachment> attachments;
}
#Entity
public class Attachment {
#Id
Long id;
#Column(...)
String resourceLocation
}
And, the result you are looking for is simply the result of HQL of something like
from Content where attachments IS EMPTY
I believe you can join fetch too in order to save DB access:
from Content c left join fetch c.attachments where c.attachments IS EMPTY

How to get Doctrine2 entity identifier without knowing its name

I am attempting to create an abstracted getId method on my base Entity class in Symfony2 using Doctrine2 for a database where primary keys are named inconsistently across tables.
When inspecting entity objects I see there is a private '_identifier' property that contains the information I am trying to retrieve but I am not sure how to properly access it.
I'm assuming there is some simple Doctrine magic similar to:
public function getId()
{
return $this->getIdentifier();
}
But I haven't managed to find it on the intertubes anywhere.
You can access this information via EntityManager#getClassMetadata(). An example would look like this:
// $em instanceof EntityManager
$meta = $em->getClassMetadata(get_class($entity));
$identifier = $meta->getSingleIdentifierFieldName();
If your entity has a composite primary key, you'll need to use $meta->getIdentifierFieldNames() instead. Of course, using this method, you'll need access to an instance of EntityManager, so this code is usually placed in a custom repository rather than in the entity itself.
Hope that helps.

Entity Framework 4.1 Dynamically retrieve mapped column name

I am trying to construct an SQL statement dynamically.
My context is created dynamically, using reflection finding classes deriving from EntityTypeConfiguration and adding them to DbModelBuilder.Configuration.
My EntityTypeConfiguration classes specify HasColumnName to map the Entity property name to db table column name, which I need to construct my SQL statement.
namespace MyDomain {
public class TestEntityConfig : EntityTypeConfiguration<TestEntity>{
Property("Name").HasColumnName("dbName");
}
}
From What I have researched, it seems I can get access to this information through MetadataWorkspace, which I can get to through ObjectContext.
I have managed to retrieve the the entity I am interested in with MetadataWorkspace.GetItem("MyDomain.TestEntity",DataSpace.OSpace), which gives me access to Properties, but none of the properties, of Properties, give me the name of the mapped db column, as specified with HasColumnName.
Also I am not clear what DataSpace.OSpace is and why my model is constructed in this space.
If Anyone can shed some light on this I would be grateful
UPDATE
Further to #Ladislav's comments. I discovered I can get the information as follows
For the class properties
ctx.MetadataWorkspace.GetItem<ClrEntityType>("MyDomain.TestEntity", DataSpace.OSpace)).Members
For the table properties
ctx.MetadataWorkspace.GetItem<EntityType>("CodeFirstDatabaseSchema.TestEntity",SSpace).Members
So given that I only know the type MyDomain.TestEntity and Memeber "Name". How would I go about to get "dbName". Can I always assume that my mapped class will be created in CodeFirstDatabaseSchema, om order to dynamically construct the identity to retrieve it from SSpace and how would I get to the correct Member in SSpace. Can I do something like
var memIndex = ctx.MetadataWorkspace.GetItem<ClrEntityType>("MyDomain.TestEntity", DataSpace.OSpace)).Members["Name"].Index;
var dbName = ctx.MetadataWorkspace.GetItem<EntityType>("CodeFirstDatabaseSchema.TestEntity",SSpace).Members[memIndex];
MetadataWorkspace contanis several containers specified by DataSpace. Interesting for you are:
CSpace - description of conceptual model (this should contain properties)
CSSpace - mapping of conceptual model to storage model (this should contain how classes / properties are mapped to tables / columns)

NHibernate - define fetching strategy dynamically

Let me explain the problem - hopefully I have defined it well in the title but I want to be sure.
I have a linq query that pulls back a bunch of objects (say Foos). Each Foo holds a reference to a User. Each User holds a reference to a Person:
public class Foo
{
//properties omitted...
public User CreatedBy {get;}
}
public class User
{
//properties omitted...
public Person Person {get;set;}
}
As the object structure would suggest, in the database, Foo relates many-to-one to User, and User relates many-to-one to Person.
When I run the query, I get a single SELECT for the Foos, then a SELECT each for all the Users and People. Clearly I would much prefer a single SELECT with a couple of joins.
I don't necessarily want to specify in my mapping config that Foos ALWAYS eager fetch the User, or that Users ALWAYS eager fetch the Person, but I would like to be able to specify that in this instance.
Is there a way to do that?
Thanks
David
All the NHibernate query methods have ways of specifying eager fetching.
For Criteria, you have SetFetchMode.
For HQL, you have [inner|left] join fetch.
For Linq yo have Expand (2.x contrib) / Fetch (3.x).
For SQL you have AddJoin.
Both Udi Dahan and Ritesh Rao offer example implementations of dynamic fetching strategies for NHibernate, this should give you a good starting point.
Additionally to Diegos nice answer: You can also use batching. This reduces the N+1 problem without much pain:
use batch-size on class level:
<class name="Person" batch-size="20">
...
</class>
use batch-size on collection level:
<map
name="SomeCollection"
batch-size="20">
...
</map>
When ever one of these references is loaded, NHibernate loads 20 at once using a query like this:
select ... from Person where user_fk in (23, 34, 6, 667, 6745, 234 ....)
So it turns N+1 to N / 20 + 1, which is pretty good.

NHibernate: How to get mapped values?

Suppose I have a class Customer that is mapped to the database and everything is a-ok.
Now suppose that I want to retrieve - in my application - the column name that NH knows Customer.FirstName maps to.
How would I do this?
You can access the database field name through NHibernate.Cfg.Configuration:
// cfg is NHibernate.Cfg.Configuration
// You will have to provide the complete namespace for Customer
var persistentClass = cfg.GetClassMapping(typeof(Customer));
var property = persistentClass.GetProperty("FirstName");
var columnIterator = property.ColumnIterator;
The ColumnIterator property returns IEnumerable<NHibernate.Mapping.ISelectable>. In almost all cases properties are mapped to a single column so the column name can be found using property.ColumnInterator.ElementAt(0).Text.
I'm not aware that that's doable.
I believe your best bet would be to use .xml files to do the mapping, package them together with the application and read the contents at runtime. I am not aware of an API which allows you to query hibernate annotations (pardon the Java lingo) at runtime, and that's what you would need.
Update:
Judging by Jamie's solution, NHibernate and Hibernate have different APIs, because the Hibernate org.hibernate.Hibernate class provides no way to access a "configuration" property.