Many to Many Mapping in Hibernate

Many to many mapping in hibernate is required when each record in an entity may have many linked records in another entity and vice-versa.

In this tutorial you will learn how to map many-to-many relationship using Hibernate. Consider the following relationship between Vehicle and UserDetails entity.

 

According to the relationship a user can have in any number of vehicles and the vehicle can have any number of users.

UserDetail.java

package com.sdnext.hibernate.tutorial.dto;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collection;

import javax.persistence.Column;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import javax.persistence.GenerationType;
import javax.persistence.Id;
import javax.persistence.ManyToMany;
import javax.persistence.Table;

@Entity
@Table (name="USER")
public class UserDetails 
{
    @Id
    @Column(name="USER_ID")
    @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.AUTO)
    private int    userId;
    
    @Column(name="USER_NAME") 
    private String userName;
    
    @ManyToMany
    private Collection<Vehicle> vehicle = new ArrayList<Vehicle>();
    
    public int getUserId() {
        return userId;
    }
    public Collection<Vehicle> getVehicle() {
        return vehicle;
    }
    public void setVehicle(Collection<Vehicle> vehicle) {
        this.vehicle = vehicle;
    }
    public void setUserId(int userId) {
        this.userId = userId;
    }
    public String getUserName() {
        return userName;
    }
    public void setUserName(String userName) {
        this.userName = userName;
    }
}

Vehicle.java

package com.sdnext.hibernate.tutorial.dto;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collection;

import javax.persistence.Column;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import javax.persistence.GenerationType;
import javax.persistence.Id;
import javax.persistence.ManyToMany;
import javax.persistence.Table;

@Entity
@Table(name="VEHICLE")
public class Vehicle 
{
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.AUTO)
    @Column(name="VEHICLE_ID")
    private int vehicleId;
    
    @Column(name="VEHICLE_NAME")
    private String vehicleName;
    
    @ManyToMany(mappedBy="vehicle")
    private Collection<UserDetails> user = new ArrayList<UserDetails>();
    
    public Collection<UserDetails> getUser() {
        return user;
    }
    public void setUser(Collection<UserDetails> user) {
        this.user = user;
    }
    public int getVehicleId() {
        return vehicleId;
    }
    public void setVehicleId(int vehicleId) {
        this.vehicleId = vehicleId;
    }
    public String getVehicleName() {
        return vehicleName;
    }
    public void setVehicleName(String vehicleName) {
        this.vehicleName = vehicleName;
    }
}

hibernate.cfg.xml:

<hibernate-configuration>
    <session-factory>
        <!-- Database connection settings -->
         <property name="connection.driver_class">com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</property>
         <property name="connection.url">jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/hibernateDB</property>
         <property name="connection.username">root</property>
         <property name="connection.password">root</property>

        <!-- JDBC connection pool (use the built-in) -->
         <property name="connection.pool_size">1</property>

        <!-- SQL dialect -->
         <property name="dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</property>

        <!-- Enable Hibernate's automatic session context management -->
          <property name="current_session_context_class">thread</property>
       
        <!-- Disable the second-level cache -->
         <property name="cache.provider_class">org.hibernate.cache.NoCacheProvider</property>

        <!-- Echo all executed SQL to stdout -->
         <property name="show_sql">true</property>
       
        <!-- Drop and re-create the database schema on startup -->
         <property name="hbm2ddl.auto">create</property>
        
        
         <mapping class="com.sdnext.hibernate.tutorial.dto.UserDetails">
         <mapping class="com.sdnext.hibernate.tutorial.dto.Vehicle">
        
     </mapping></mapping></session-factory>
 </hibernate-configuration>

HibernateTestDemo.java

package com.sdnext.hibernate.tutorial;

import org.hibernate.Session;
import org.hibernate.SessionFactory;
import org.hibernate.cfg.AnnotationConfiguration;

import com.sdnext.hibernate.tutorial.dto.UserDetails;
import com.sdnext.hibernate.tutorial.dto.Vehicle;


public class HibernateTestDemo {

    /**
     * @param args
     */
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        UserDetails user = new UserDetails();
        UserDetails user2 = new UserDetails();
        
        Vehicle vehicle = new Vehicle();
        Vehicle vehicle2 = new Vehicle();
        
        vehicle.setVehicleName("Car");
        vehicle.getUser().add(user);
        vehicle.getUser().add(user2);
        
        vehicle2.setVehicleName("Jeep");
        vehicle2.getUser().add(user2);
        vehicle2.getUser().add(user);
        
        user.setUserName("First User");
        user2.setUserName("Second User");
        user.getVehicle().add(vehicle);
        user.getVehicle().add(vehicle2);
        user2.getVehicle().add(vehicle);
        user2.getVehicle().add(vehicle2);
        
        SessionFactory sessionFactory = new AnnotationConfiguration().configure().buildSessionFactory();
        Session session = sessionFactory.openSession();
        session.beginTransaction();
        session.save(vehicle);
        session.save(vehicle2);
        session.save(user);
        session.save(user2);
        session.getTransaction().commit();
        session.close();
    }
}

Using Mapping files instead of Annotation

userDetail.hbm.xml

<hibernate-mapping>
    <class name="com.sdnext.hibernate.tutorial.dto.UserDetails" table="USER">
         <id column="ID" name="userId" type="long">
             <generator class="assigned">
          </generator></id>
          <property column="column" name="UserName">
          <list cascade="all" name="vehicle" table="USER_VEHICLE">
              <key column="USER_ID">
              <many-to-many class="com.sdnext.hibernate.tutorial.dto.Vehicle" column="VEHICLE_ID">
          </many-to-many></key></list>
    </property></class> 
</hibernate-mapping>

vehicle.hbm.xml

<hibernate-mapping>
     <class name="com.sdnext.hibernate.tutorial.dto.Vehicle" table="VEHICLE">
         <id column="ID" name="userId" type="long">
              <generator class="assigned">
         </generator></id>
         <property column="VEHICLE_NAME" name="vehicleName">
     </property></class>
</hibernate-mapping>