javapostgresqlspring-boothttp-posthibernate-onetomany

Using OneToMany relation in Spring Boot and PostgreSQL


I have two entities, Post and Comment.

Post entity:

@Entity
@Table(name = "posts")
public class Post {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private Long id;

    private String title;
    private String content;

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "post", cascade = CascadeType.ALL, orphanRemoval = true)
    private List<Comment> comments = new ArrayList<>();

Comment entity:

@Entity
@Table(name = "comments")
public class Comment {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private Long id;

    private String content;

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name = "post_id")
    private Post post;

Left out getters and setters for readability.

When I send a POST-request via PostController, I can store a new Post in my PostgreSQL database. How do I add new Comments to this Post via Controller? I seem to not find the answer anywhere.


Solution

  • So, here you have create a two way relationship and hence will need to update both the post entity and comment entity.

    let take for instance that your comments path is /post/{postId}/comment, and you are using Sping JPA (with repositories for comment and post as commentRepository and postRepository respectively.)

    then controller method will look like -

    @PostMapping("/post/{postId}/comment")
    public ResponseEntity postController(@PathParam("postId") Long postId,
      @RequestBody Comment comment) {
      Post post = postRepository.getById(postId); 
      comment.setPost(post);
      post.getComments().add(comment);
      commentRepository.save(comment);
      postRepository.save(post);
    }
    

    Another alternative is to create a one way relationship, so

    @Entity
    @Table(name = "posts")
    public class Post {
    
        @Id
        @GeneratedValue
        private Long id;
    
        private String title;
        private String content;
    
    @Entity
    @Table(name = "comments")
    public class Comment {
    
        @Id
        @GeneratedValue
        private Long id;
    
        private String content;
    
        @ManyToOne
        @JoinColumn(name = "post_id")
        private Post post;
    

    Then, you only need to update the comment entity on POST-request and if you need to get all the comments for a post you can do -

    List<Comment> comments = commentRepository.getByPostId(postId);