Re: [hibernate-dev] Null vs "empty" embeddable values

Hi Steve, IIUC, you are suggesting: if ( !emptyValue.equals( null ) || emptyValue.hashCode() != 0 ) { LOG.warn( ... ); } I originally mentioned this issue with respect to Collection methods called on collections of embeddable values, but it could apply to empty/null embeddables in singular attributes as well. This warning would apply regardless of the setting for hibernate.create_empty_composites.enabled, since an application itself could set null or empty embeddable values. After thinking about this more, I suspect that such a warning would get logged for many (most?) embedded values. There is also a complication that Hibernate will inject the parent into an empty value if @Parent is mapped on a property in the embeddable. That (non-empty) parent could affect what gets returned by #equals and/or #hashCode. I've been trying to figure out a good place for checking to minimize the warnings. Here are some options: 1) Check when the owner PersistentClass is being validated by MetadataImpl#validate. Component#validate could be added to override SimpleValue#validate. If the check fails, a warning will logged in each context where the embeddable is used. Unfortunately, if @Parent is used in the embeddable class, there would be no way to check if parent attribute affects #equals or #hashCode since there is (obviously) no parent when validating the PersistentClass. 2) Check after Hibernate instantiates an empty value when resolving a null value with hibernate.create_empty_composites.enabled=true by ComponentType#resolve(Object value, SharedSessionContractImplementor session, Object owner). I believe the parent would be provided to the method, so it would be available to check. I'd have to check to be sure though. If the parent contributes to the return values of #equals or #hashCode, there are other considerations to take into account. At the time ComponentType#resolve is called, the parent may not be completely resolved; it may not be valid to call those methods when the component is being resolved. Calling #hashCode and #equals on the parent each time Hibernate instantiates an empty value when resolving a null value (with hibernate.create_empty_composites.enabled=true) could hurt performance. If the check fails, lots of warnings could be logged. My opinion... After thinking about this as I'm writing this, I think 1) makes sense if there is no parent; 2) has too many problems to be workable. Any other ideas about how to deal with this? I don't think there is anything in the user guide that discusses how Hibernate treats null and empty embeddables as equivalent. There have been issues reported periodically related to collections. The most recent is HHH-11723. I think it would be worthwhile documenting this information in the user guide. Comments? Thanks, Gail On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 6:01 AM, Steve Ebersole <steve(a)hibernate.org&gt; wrote: