Posted on December 27, 2017 by vladmihalcea

How to map JSON collections using JPA and Hibernate

(Last Updated On: February 2, 2018)

Introduction

The open-source hibernate-types project allows you to map Java objects or Jackson JsonNode as JPA or Hibernate entity properties, and, thanks to our awesome contributors, we have added support for storing type-safe JSON collections.

In this article, you are going to see how to achieve this goal.

Maven dependency

First of all, you need to set up the following Maven dependency in your project pom.xml configuration file:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.vladmihalcea</groupId>
    <artifactId>hibernate-types-52</artifactId>
    <version>${hibernate-types.version}</version>
</dependency>

If you’re using older versions of Hibernate, check out the hibernate-types GitHub repository for more info about the matching dependency for your current Hibernate version.

Domain Model

Let’s assume we have the following Location Java object type.

public class Location implements Serializable {

    private String country;

    private String city;

    //Getters and setters omitted for brevity

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Location{" +
                "country='" + country + ''' +
                ", city='" + city + ''' +
                '}';
    }
}

And, one Event entity:

@Entity(name = "Event")
@Table(name = "event")
public class Event extends BaseEntity {

    @Type(type = "jsonb")
    @Column(columnDefinition = "jsonb")
    private Location location;

    @Type(type = "jsonb")
    @Column(columnDefinition = "jsonb")
    private List<Location> alternativeLocations = new ArrayList<Location>();

    //Getters and setters omitted for brevity
}

The BaseEntity defines some basic properties (e.g. @Id, @Version) and several custom Hibernate types, among which, we are interested in the JsonBinaryType one.

@TypeDefs({
    @TypeDef(name = "string-array", typeClass = StringArrayType.class),
    @TypeDef(name = "int-array", typeClass = IntArrayType.class),
    @TypeDef(name = "json", typeClass = JsonStringType.class),
    @TypeDef(name = "jsonb", typeClass = JsonBinaryType.class),
    @TypeDef(name = "jsonb-node", typeClass = JsonNodeBinaryType.class),
    @TypeDef(name = "json-node", typeClass = JsonNodeStringType.class),
})
@MappedSuperclass
public class BaseEntity {

    @Id
    private Long id;

    @Version
    private Integer version;

    //Getters and setters omitted for brevity
}

For more details about using @MappedSuperclass, check out this article.

To store both the Location object or the List<Location> in a jsonb PostgreSQL column, we just need to annotate the location property with @Type(type = "jsonb").

That’s it!

Testing time

When saving the following Event entity:

Location cluj = new Location();
cluj.setCountry("Romania");
cluj.setCity("Cluj-Napoca");

Location newYork = new Location();
newYork.setCountry("US");
newYork.setCity("New-York");

Location london = new Location();
london.setCountry("UK");
london.setCity("London");

Event event = new Event();
event.setId(1L);
event.setLocation(cluj);
event.setAlternativeLocations(
    Arrays.asList(newYork, london)
);

entityManager.persist(event);

Hibernate will generate the following SQL INSERT statement:

INSERT INTO event (
    version, 
    alternativeLocations, 
    location, 
    id
) 
VALUES (
    0, 
    [
        {"country":"US","city":"New-York"},
        {"country":"UK","city":"London"}
    ], 
    {"country":"Romania","city":"Cluj-Napoca"}, 
    1
)

Also, when retrieving back the Event entity, both the location and thealternativeLocations` properties are properly fetched:

Event event = entityManager.find(Event.class, eventId);

assertEquals(
    "Cluj-Napoca", 
    event.getLocation().getCity()
);

assertEquals(2, event.getAlternativeLocations().size());

assertEquals(
    "New-York", 
    event.getAlternativeLocations().get(0).getCity()
);
assertEquals(
    "London", 
    event.getAlternativeLocations().get(1).getCity()
);

Cool, right?

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Conclusion

The hibernate-types project supports more than JSON types. You can map PostgreSQL ARRAY types or PostgreSQL-specific Enums, nullable Character, or even provide your own immutable Hibernate custom Types.

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42 Comments on “How to map JSON collections using JPA and Hibernate”

harald
January 11, 2019

Hi vlad,

I think there might be an issue when using this with envers. When i retrieve my entity using the entitymanager it maps the jsonb list to an ArrayList of the generic type. But when i retrieve my audit entity by using the AuditReader class (created from the same entitymanager), my jsonb list suddenly becomes an ArrayList.

The only cause for this i can think of is that the name of the versions entity is the same as the name of the entity being audited, but it ends with _AUD.

This issue occurs for met with hibernate 5.2 and version 2.3.5 of hibernate-types-52

Reply
- vladmihalcea
  January 11, 2019
  
  The hibernate-types framework is designed for Hibernate ORM only. If it does not work with Envers, then a Jira issue has to be created for the Hibernate Envers project.
  
  Reply
  - harald
    January 11, 2019
    
    I looked into this a bit deeper, and this worked with version 1.2.0, where I was able to define a type reference factory class using the parameter “com.vladmihalcea.hibernate.type.json.TypeReferenceFactory.class”.
    
    For envers it seems that the “org.hibernate.type.ParameterType.xproperty” parameter is not passed to the JsonTypeDescriptor setParameterValues method. I was wondering if this was something that I could work around, or if this is a bug in envers that should be reported and fixed?
  - vladmihalcea
    January 11, 2019
    
    The TypeReferenceFactory was too complicated for generic usage, so version 2.x of the hibernate-types project simplified that via XProperty. You need to investigate it further and see why it does not work, and provide a Pull Request with a fix. Looking forward to your contribution.
saurabh prakash
December 31, 2018

Using same above flow i created a project,

Its giving me this error:
“java.util.ArrayList cannot be cast to com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode”

for this column: private List alternativeLocations = new ArrayList()

on save method call.

Anything which i may be missing ? (or done wrong)

Reply
- vladmihalcea
  December 31, 2018
  
  You are missing generics. Check out the hibernate-types GitHub repository for examples which show you how to use this framework.
  
  Reply
  - saurabh prakash
    December 31, 2018
    
    Hey Sorry, I didn’t got exactly:
    
    I’m checking to this link: https://github.com/vladmihalcea/hibernate-types/blob/4cdb72112b4b784e7b3dc8a253de6c410877e90f/hibernate-types-43/src/test/java/com/vladmihalcea/hibernate/type/json/PostgreSQLGenericJsonBinaryTypeTest.java
    
    Where exactly generics are used ?
  - vladmihalcea
    December 31, 2018
    
    Check out my High-Performance Java Persistence video course for more details.
John Stephens
November 8, 2018

Hello vlad, thanks for the excellent article. I am able to insert json objects but not an array of json objects. The entity class is as below :-

public class Sales extends BaseEntity implements Serializable {
@Type(type = “jsonb”)
@Column(columnDefinition = “jsonb”, name = “sales_target”)
private List salesTargetList = new ArrayList();
}

The SalesTarget entity is as below:-

public class SalesTarget implements Serializable {
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

private String teamLeader; private int salesVolume;

}

Only blank data is getting submitted. The structure of json array should be as follows :-

{teamLeader: “Rick”, salesVolume: 530 } , {teamLeader: “Jeff”, salesVolume: 640 } ,

Reply
- vladmihalcea
  November 9, 2018
  
  Try using Generics for the List, like List.
  
  Reply
Sai
September 27, 2018

“message”: “Property: ‘notificationTypes’ not found in Class: class com.xvela.notification.events.EventVo$EventVoBuilder”,

getting this error while trying to insert in postgres via postman..followed the steps in this article..
but record is getting inserted in the table..

Reply
- vladmihalcea
  September 27, 2018
  
  All the tests are on GitHub and work like a charm.
  
  Reply
Patrizio
September 12, 2018
Hi Vlad, I’m experiencing the same problem of Joao and André when deploying on JBoss EAP 7, which ships the following Hibernate versions:

5.1.10.Final-redhat-1
5.0.1.Final-redhat-2
${version.org.hibernate}
5.3.5.Final-redhat-2
5.5.8.Final-redhat-1

In my pom I just added the dependency:
```
        com.vladmihalcea
        hibernate-types-5
        2.2.3
```
but at deployment time it complains about a missing class from hibernate-commons-annotations:

Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/hibernate/annotations/common/reflection/XProperty
at com.vladmihalcea.hibernate.type.json.internal.JsonTypeDescriptor.setParameterValues(JsonTypeDescriptor.java:58)
at com.vladmihalcea.hibernate.type.json.JsonBinaryType.setParameterValues(JsonBinaryType.java:66)
at org.hibernate.type.TypeFactory.injectParameters(TypeFactory.java:142)

The class is indeed present in the jar provided by JBoss but it looks like the ModuleClassLoader is not able to find it.

Can you give me some hint about how to overcome this problem?

Thanks al ot

Reply
- vladmihalcea
  September 12, 2018
  
  I’m not familiar with JBoss and Wildfly modules, so you need to ask the question on the JBoss forum. They will surely know how to sort it out.
  
  Reply
Himanshu Kapil
August 21, 2018

Is it possible to store the JSon column value as “String”? I am getting error

Schema-validation: wrong column type encountered in column [VALIDATION_ADDITIONAL_ATTRIBUTES] in table [FI_FILE_VALIDATION_T]; found [json (Types#OTHER)], but expecting [varchar(255) (Types#VARCHAR)]

My Entity is like followoing

@Entity
@Table(name=”FI_FILE_VALIDATION_T”, schema=”XXX”)

@TypeDefs({
@TypeDef(name = “json”, typeClass = JsonStringType.class),
@TypeDef(name = “jsonb”, typeClass = JsonBinaryType.class),
@TypeDef(name = “jsonb-node”, typeClass = JsonNodeBinaryType.class),
@TypeDef(name = “json-node”, typeClass = JsonNodeStringType.class),
})
public class FIFileValidation implements Serializable{
…
…
@org.hibernate.annotations.Type(type=”jsonb”)
@Column(name=”VALIDATION_ADDITIONAL_ATTRIBUTES”,columnDefinition=”jsonb”)
private Map<String,String> validationAdditionalAttributes;

..

Thanks
Himanshu

Reply
- vladmihalcea
  August 21, 2018
  
  The json and jsob types are for storing data in JSON column types. If you need to store the JSON in a VARCHAR, just use a String entity property and it will work even without the hibernate-types project.
  
  Reply
Evgeniy
August 20, 2018

Hi Vlad,

I’m trying your library (hibernate-types) and faced with the issue. Can you please help.
Project details:
Spring 4.3.10, Hibernate 5.2.5, hibernate-types-52 2.2.3, connection pool – c3p0 0.9.5.2, jackson 2.3.2.
Env:
Jboss 7, MsSql, jdk8

Java model:
BaseEntity – copy from the article.

@Entity
@Table(name = “B_BOOK”)
public class Book extends BaseEntity {
private String title;
private String author;

@Type(type = "jsonb") @Column(columnDefinition = "jsonb") private Details details;

}

public class Details implements Serializable {
private String details;
@Override
public String toString() { return “Details{details=’” + details + “\’}”; }
}

With GET request I get properly created Book with Details.
With POST request without Details object I get Book saved in DB.
With POST request with Details object I get exception:
com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerException: The conversion from UNKNOWN to OTHER is unsupported.

What was done wrongly?

Thanks in advance,
Evgeniy

Reply
- vladmihalcea
  August 20, 2018
  
  I never tested it with SQL Server. You need to see if String or Binary work better, and supply a Pull Request with a new type if the existing ones don’t work. Looking forward to your contribution.
  
  Reply
daniel
July 25, 2018

Mallikarjuna Reddy,

did you solve this error? I got the same error as yours for jsonb, but it works for json type when saving and receiving

Reply
Tommy
July 9, 2018
Hey Vlad. Quick question, would the implementation of HashMap/Map work with jsonb as shown in the code below?
```
@Type(type = "jsonb")
@Column(columnDefinition = "jsonb")
private  Map<String, String> stuff;
```
Reply
- vladmihalcea
  July 9, 2018
  
  I have never tested it with a Map, but you can give it a try and see if it works. If it does not, send me a Pull Request with the enhancement. Thanks.
  
  Reply
  - Rakesh
    July 24, 2018
    
    It worked for me using the Map . Awesome work. Thanks Vlad.
  - vladmihalcea
    July 24, 2018
    
    You’re welcome.
Bruno
May 19, 2018

Really really cool Vlad, congrats!!!

I’m trying to do the same but I’m getting :
IllegalArgumentException: Not a managed type

@Entity
public class Sample extends BaseEntity {

@Id
@GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
private Integer id;

@Type(type = “jsonb”)
@Column(columnDefinition = “jsonb”)
private List exams = new ArrayList();

}

Same as you did. There is any Git repo where I could see more samples? 🙂
I shall really appreciate it 🙂 Thanks.

Reply
- vladmihalcea
  May 19, 2018
  
  This is the GitHub repository https://github.com/vladmihalcea/hibernate-types
  
  Reply
Joao
April 23, 2018

I’m trying to use your library in wildfly 11.0.0.Final that uses hibernate 5.1.10.Final., but i’m facing some problems: when i bootstrap the application the result is
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.hibernate.annotations.common.reflection.XProperty.

Can you give me some tips about my problem?

Reply
- vladmihalcea
  April 23, 2018
  
  I have never used Wildfly. However, you just need to make sure you have the hibernate-commons-annotations artifact in your application class-path.
  
  Reply
  - André
    September 5, 2018
    
    I’m having the same problem.
    And having hibernate-commons-annotations on classpath resulted in
    java.lang.ClassCastException: org.hibernate.annotations.common.reflection.java.JavaXProperty cannot be cast to org.hibernate.annotations.common.reflection.XProperty
  - vladmihalcea
    September 5, 2018
    
    Try to replicate it with this test case and send a Pull Request with it on GitHub.
- Halcsi
  September 18, 2018
  
  I solved it! Wildfly(or jboss) provide hibernate. And I don’t know why, he search hibernate in the deployed ear, where doesn’t can be.
  
  I changed my ear’s pom in the “maven-ear-plugin.configuration.archive” section.
  
  org.hibernate.commons-annotations
  
  H.
  
  Reply
  - Patrizio
    September 18, 2018
    
    Great! so did you included all the Hibernate libraries in the EAR ? or just the org.hibernate.commons-annotations jar ?
  - Halcsi
    September 18, 2018
    
    No! Just wildfly searched it there.
    
    I changed my ear’s pom in the “maven-ear-plugin.configuration.archive” section.
    
    org.hibernate.commons-annotations
  - Jonathan
    December 17, 2018
    
    What exactly did you change in your EAR pom.xml? I’m having this exact same problem with Wildfly.
  - Jonathan
    December 17, 2018
    
    Nevermind! I was able to solve the problem by changing my jboss-deployment-structure.xml to the following:
  - Jonathan
    December 17, 2018
    
    Ahh yes, can’t post XML. Anyways, I added “org.hibernate.commons-annotations” as a module dependency to jboss-deployment-structure.xml
  - vladmihalcea
    December 17, 2018
    
    You can post XML. Just add it in code HTML tags.
novodexx
April 15, 2018

Hi vlad, thanks for your great article.
I encountered a problem here, I use hibernate and liquibase:

2018-04-15 15:25:56.017 ERROR 21184 — [ main] o.h.metamodel.internal.MetadataContext : HHH015007: Illegal argument on static metamodel field injection : com.james.app.domain.Ability_#abilities; expected type : org.hibernate.metamodel.internal.SingularAttributeImpl; encountered type : javax.persistence.metamodel.ListAttribute

my domain class abilities field is as below:
@Type(type = “json”)
@Column(columnDefinition = “json”)
private List abilities = new ArrayList();

Could you please help? very very appreicated.

Reply
- vladmihalcea
  April 15, 2018
  
  Sounds like HHH-12338.
  
  Reply
  - novodexx
    April 15, 2018
    
    thanks, but the fixed version is not published yet.
  - vladmihalcea
    April 15, 2018
    
    You can test it with the latest snapshot and see if it works: https://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/repositories/snapshots/org/hibernate/hibernate-core/5.2.17-SNAPSHOT/
  - novodexx
    April 15, 2018
    
    I tried 5.2.17-SNAPSHOT, I cannot see the original exception, however a new exception: org.hibernate.tool.schema.spi.SchemaManagementException: Schema-validation: missing column [abilities] in table [ability], but the table has abilities indeed, don’t konw why.
  - vladmihalcea
    April 15, 2018
    
    Try to investigate it and open a Jira issue.

Vlad Mihalcea

How to map JSON collections using JPA and Hibernate

Introduction

Maven dependency

Domain Model

Testing time

Conclusion

Download free ebook sample

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42 Comments on “How to map JSON collections using JPA and Hibernate”

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Vlad Mihalcea

How to map JSON collections using JPA and Hibernate

Introduction

Maven dependency

Domain Model

Testing time

Conclusion

Download free ebook sample

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Related

42 Comments on “How to map JSON collections using JPA and Hibernate”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Let’s connect

Sponsored

Download Free eBook

Video Course

eBook

Paperback Book

Tutorials

Training and Workshops

Consulting

Become a Java Champion

JPA and Hibernate Performance Tuning Tips

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eBook

Video Course

Download Free eBook

Sponsored

Tutorials

Social Media

About

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