AuditingEntityListener with Embeddable classes

[dgallego58]

i see that an Entity with @CreatedDate and @LastModifiedDate and other auditable annotations works nice when those attributes are in the same class annotated with @entity, but it doesn't seem to work when those are on a @Embeddable annotated class

@Embeddable
public class Auditable {

    @CreatedDate
    private Instant cratedDate;

    @LastModifiedDate
    private Instant lastModifiedDate;
     ...
}

@Entity
@EntityListeners(AuditableListener.class) //this works with embedded, it is a custom Auditable
//@EntityListeners(AuditingEntityListener.class) //doesn't work for embedded
public class EntityB implements AuditableEntity{

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private UUID uuid;

    private String randomAtt;

    @Embedded
    private AuditablePart auditablePart;

    ...

it would be cool if it can be used a similar approach by using the same AuditingEntityListener.class in addition to a custom one

i made a demo project showing this

[gregturn]

I crafted a test case and verified that indeed, @EntityListeners(AuditingEntityListener.class) works for @Embedded entities.

@Entity
@EntityListeners(AuditingEntityListener.class)
public class AuditableEntity {

	@Id
	@GeneratedValue //
	private Long id;

	private String data;

	@Embedded //
	private AuditableEmbeddable auditDetails;
	...
}

@Embeddable
public class AuditableEmbeddable {

	@CreatedDate //
	private Instant dateCreated;

	@LastModifiedDate //
	private Instant dateUpdated;
	...
}

public interface AuditableEntityRepository extends JpaRepository<AuditableEntity, Long> {}

@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
@ContextConfiguration("classpath:auditing/auditing-entity-with-embeddable-listener.xml")
public class AuditingEntityWithEmbeddableListenerTests {

	@Autowired AuditableEntityRepository repository;

	private AuditableEntity entity;
	private AuditableEmbeddable auditDetails;

	@BeforeEach
	void setUp() {

		entity = new AuditableEntity();
		entity.setId(1L);
		entity.setData("original value");

		auditDetails = new AuditableEmbeddable();
		entity.setAuditDetails(auditDetails);
	}

	@Test
	void auditsEmbeddedCorrectly() {

		// when
		repository.saveAndFlush(entity);
		Optional<AuditableEntity> optionalEntity = repository.findById(1L);

		// then
		assertThat(optionalEntity).isNotEmpty();

		AuditableEntity auditableEntity = optionalEntity.get();
		assertThat(auditableEntity.getData()).isEqualTo("original value");

		assertThat(auditableEntity.getAuditDetails().getDateCreated()).isNotNull();
		assertThat(auditableEntity.getAuditDetails().getDateUpdated()).isNotNull();

		Instant originalCreationDate = auditableEntity.getAuditDetails().getDateCreated();
		Instant originalDateUpdated = auditableEntity.getAuditDetails().getDateUpdated();

		auditableEntity.setData("updated value");

		repository.saveAndFlush(auditableEntity);

		Optional<AuditableEntity> optionalRevisedEntity = repository.findById(1L);

		assertThat(optionalRevisedEntity).isNotEmpty();

		AuditableEntity revisedEntity = optionalRevisedEntity.get();
		assertThat(revisedEntity.getData()).isEqualTo("updated value");

		assertThat(revisedEntity.getAuditDetails().getDateCreated()).isEqualTo(originalCreationDate);
		assertThat(revisedEntity.getAuditDetails().getDateUpdated()).isAfter(originalDateUpdated);
	}
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	   xmlns:jpa="http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/jpa"
	   xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
	   xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans https://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
		http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/jpa https://www.springframework.org/schema/data/jpa/spring-jpa.xsd
		http://www.springframework.org/schema/context https://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd">

	<import resource="../infrastructure.xml"/>

	<jpa:auditing/>

	<jpa:repositories base-package="org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.sample"/>

</beans>

When I run this test case, it passes just fine, proving that the embeddable fields are populated and updated by the AuditingEntityListener.

Something I'm missing?

[gregturn]

If there is no further comment, I will add these additional test cases to our test suite.

[dgallego58]

Hello, sorry for the late answer, i upgraded the demo i made to 2.6.4 from 2.5.7, and still the same, to replicate the problem i did this:

The entity:

import org.springframework.data.jpa.domain.support.AuditingEntityListener;

import javax.persistence.Embedded;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.EntityListeners;
import javax.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import javax.persistence.Id;
import java.util.UUID;

@Entity
@EntityListeners(AuditingEntityListener.class) //doesn't work for embedded
public class EntityB implements AuditableEntity {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private UUID uuid;

    private String randomAtt;

    @Embedded
    private Auditable auditable;

    //getter and setters
    //toString

}

Note: im using composition over inheritance for the embedded auditable.

the auditable class:

import org.springframework.data.annotation.CreatedDate;
import org.springframework.data.annotation.LastModifiedDate;

import javax.persistence.Embeddable;
import java.time.Instant;

@Embeddable
public class Auditable {

    @CreatedDate //-> doesnt work with @EntityListeners(AuditingEntityListener.class)
    private Instant dateCreated;

    @LastModifiedDate
    private Instant dateUpdated;
   
   //getter and setter

}

The interface that acts as composition AuditableEntity that the Entity implements

public interface AuditableEntity {

    Auditable getAuditable();

    void setAuditable(Auditable auditable);

}

Repo interface:

import com.example.demoauditable.entities.EntityB;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;

import java.util.UUID;

public interface EntityBRepository extends JpaRepository<EntityB, UUID> {
}

And the demo...

@SpringBootApplication
@EnableJpaAuditing
public class DemoAuditableApplication {

    private static final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(DemoAuditableApplication.class);

    @Autowired
    EntityBRepository entityBRepository;


    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(DemoAuditableApplication.class, args);
    }

    @Bean
    ApplicationRunner afterInit() {
        return args -> {

            EntityB entityB = new EntityB().setRandomAtt("test2");
            entityBRepository.save(entityB);

            List<EntityB> bResult = entityBRepository.findAll();
            log.info("EntityB result: {}", bResult);
        };
    }
}

output

EntityB result: [EntityB(uuid = dd8befb9-2f29-4c0f-9360-803b6b740a8a, randomAtt = test2, auditablePart = null)]

EDIT: I did another test initializing the @Embedded attribute with new Auditable(); and it did work as expected.
output
EntityB result: [EntityB(uuid = dd8befb9-2f29-4c0f-9360-803b6b740a8a, randomAtt = test2, auditablePart = Auditable(dateCreated = 2022-03-20T16:13:13.326813Z, dateUpdated = 2022-03-20T16:13:13.326813Z))]

it seems that is an issue with Hibernate doesnt initialize by default the composite components so i added this property to avoid using new keyword but it remains the same (return null)

spring:
  jpa:
    properties:
      hibernate:
        create_empty_composites:
          enabled: true
    open-in-view: false

so i think the solution to this is to initialize your @Embedded attribute in your entity class

[gregturn]

It looks like https://hibernate.atlassian.net/browse/HHH-11936 is an effort currently open to track Hibernate's experimental flag hibernate.create_empty_composites.enabled. I wouldn't rely upon this. Not totally sure what it's supposed to do. (More: https://docs.jboss.org/hibernate/orm/5.2/userguide/html_single/Hibernate_User_Guide.html#_misc_options)

If we are in agreement that the issue is properly initializing the embeddable entry, I think we're done here. I will gladly merge these additional test cases I wrote into the main branch and forward merge to 3.0.x.