JPA Entity Graphs: How to Define and Use a @NamedEntityGraph

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Lazy loading is often an issue with JPA. You have to define at the entity if you want to use FetchType.LAZY (default) or FetchType.EAGER to load the relation and this mode is always used. FetchType.EAGER is only used if we want to always load the relation. FetchType.LAZY is used in almost all of the cases to get a well performing and scalable application.

But this is not without drawbacks. If you have to use an element of the relation, you need to make sure, that the relation gets initialized within the transaction that load the entity from the database. This can be done by using a specific query that reads the entity and the required relations from the database. But this will result in use case specific queries. Another option is to access the relation within your business code which will result in an additional query for each relation. Both approaches are far from perfect.

Entity graphs are a better solution for it. The definition of an entity graph is independent of the query and defines which attributes to fetch from the database. An entity graph can be used as a fetch or a load graph. If a fetch graph is used, only the attributes specified by the entity graph will be treated as FetchType.EAGER. All other attributes will be lazy. If a load graph is used, all attributes that are not specified by the entity graph will keep their default fetch type.

Let’s have a look how to define and use an entity graph.

The example entities

For this example, we will use an order with a list of items and each item has a product. All associations between are fetched lazily.

The Order entity:

@Entity
@Table(name = "purchase_order")
public class Order {
 
   @Id
   @GeneratedValue
   private Long id;
 
   @Version
   private int version;
 
   private String orderNumber;
 
   @OneToMany(mappedBy = "order", fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
   private Set<OrderItem> items = new HashSet<OrderItem>();
 
   ...
}

The OrderItem entity:

@Entity
public class OrderItem {
 
   @Id
   @GeneratedValue
   private Long id;
 
   @Version
   private int version;
 
   private int quantity;
 
   @ManyToOne
   private Order order;
 
   @ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
   private Product product;
 
   ...
}

The Product entity:

@Entity
public class Product {
 
   @Id
   @GeneratedValue
   private Long id;
 
   @Version
   private int version;
 
   private String name;
 
   ...
}

Named entity graph

The definition of a named entity graph is done by the @NamedEntityGraph annotation at the entity. It defines a unique name and a list of attributes (the attributeNodes) that shall be loaded.
The following example shows the definition of the entity graph graph.Order.items which will load the list of OrderItem of an Order.

@Entity
@Table(name = "purchase_order")
@NamedEntityGraph(name = "graph.Order.items", 
                  attributeNodes = @NamedAttributeNode("items"))
public class Order { ... }

Now that we have defined the entity graph, we can use it in a query. Therefore we need to create a Map with query hints and set it as an additional parameter on a find or query method call.
The following code snippet shows how to use a named entity graph as a fetch graph in a find statement.

EntityGraph graph = this.em.getEntityGraph("graph.Order.items");
 
Map hints = new HashMap();
hints.put("jakarta.persistence.fetchgraph", graph);
 
return this.em.find(Order.class, orderId, hints);

Named sub graph

We used the entity graph to define the fetch operation of the Order entity. If we want to do the same for the OrderItem entity, we can do this with an entity sub graph. The definition of a named sub graph is similar to the definition of an named entity graph and can be referenced as an attributeNode.
The following code snippets shows the definition of a sub graph to load the Product of each OrderItem. The defined entity graph will fetch an Order with all OrderItems and their Products.

@Entity
@Table(name = "purchase_order")
@NamedEntityGraph(name = "graph.Order.items", 
                  attributeNodes = @NamedAttributeNode(value = "items", subgraph = "items"), 
                  subgraphs = @NamedSubgraph(name = "items", attributeNodes = @NamedAttributeNode("product")))
public class Order { ... }

What’s happening inside?

OK, from a development point of view entity graphs are great. They are easy to use and we do not need to write additional code to avoid lazy loading issues. But what is happening inside? How many queries are send to the database? Lets have a look at the hibernate debug log.

21:56:08,285 DEBUG [org.hibernate.loader.plan.build.spi.LoadPlanTreePrinter] (pool-2-thread-1) LoadPlan(entity=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Order) - Returns - EntityReturnImpl(entity=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Order, querySpaceUid=<gen:0>, path=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Order) - CollectionAttributeFetchImpl(collection=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Order.items, querySpaceUid=<gen:1>, path=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Order.items) - (collection element) CollectionFetchableElementEntityGraph(entity=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.OrderItem, querySpaceUid=<gen:2>, path=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Order.items.<elements>) - EntityAttributeFetchImpl(entity=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Product, querySpaceUid=<gen:3>, path=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Order.items.<elements>.product) - QuerySpaces - EntityQuerySpaceImpl(uid=<gen:0>, entity=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Order) - SQL table alias mapping - order0_ - alias suffix - 0_ - suffixed key columns - {id1_2_0_} - JOIN (JoinDefinedByMetadata(items)) : <gen:0> -> <gen:1> - CollectionQuerySpaceImpl(uid=<gen:1>, collection=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Order.items) - SQL table alias mapping - items1_ - alias suffix - 1_ - suffixed key columns - {order_id4_2_1_} - entity-element alias suffix - 2_ - 2_entity-element suffixed key columns - id1_0_2_ - JOIN (JoinDefinedByMetadata(elements)) : <gen:1> -> <gen:2> - EntityQuerySpaceImpl(uid=<gen:2>, entity=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.OrderItem) - SQL table alias mapping - items1_ - alias suffix - 2_ - suffixed key columns - {id1_0_2_} - JOIN (JoinDefinedByMetadata(product)) : <gen:2> -> <gen:3> - EntityQuerySpaceImpl(uid=<gen:3>, entity=blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Product) - SQL table alias mapping - product2_ - alias suffix - 3_ - suffixed key columns - {id1_1_3_} 
 
21:56:08,285 DEBUG [org.hibernate.loader.entity.plan.EntityLoader] (pool-2-thread-1) Static select for entity blog.thoughts.on.java.jpa21.entity.graph.model.Order [NONE:-1]: select order0_.id as id1_2_0_, order0_.orderNumber as orderNum2_2_0_, order0_.version as version3_2_0_, items1_.order_id as order_id4_2_1_, items1_.id as id1_0_1_, items1_.id as id1_0_2_, items1_.order_id as order_id4_0_2_, items1_.product_id as product_5_0_2_, items1_.quantity as quantity2_0_2_, items1_.version as version3_0_2_, product2_.id as id1_1_3_, product2_.name as name2_1_3_, product2_.version as version3_1_3_ from purchase_order order0_ left outer join OrderItem items1_ on order0_.id=items1_.order_id left outer join Product product2_ on items1_.product_id=product2_.id where order0_.id=?

The log shows that only one query is created. Hibernate uses the entity graph to create a load plan with all 3 entities (Order, OrderItem and Product) and load them with one query.

Conclusion

We defined an entity graph that tells the entity manager to fetch a graph of 3 related entities from the database (Order, OrderItem and Product). The definition and usage of the entity graph is query independent and results in only one select statement. So the main drawbacks of the JPA 2.0 approaches (mentioned in the beginning) are solved.