Hibernate Unidirectional Parent/Child relationship - delete() performs update on child table instead of delete

Question

If I delete a record from the Parent table I want the corresponding records in the child table to be deleted. How can I make Hibernate delete from the Child tabl

Answer 1

(Note: This has been raised as an incorrect answer by two users).

Hibernate docs say you can just mark the key column as not-null="true":

<list name="charityTransferItemList" cascade="all,delete-orphan" lazy="false">
        <key column="TSF_NO" not-null="true" />
        <list-index column="TSF_SEQ_NO"/>
        <one-to-many class="CharityTransferItem" />
</list>

From Hibernate doc on collections:

If the foreign key column of a association is declared NOT NULL, you must declare the mapping not-null="true" or use a bidirectional association with the collection mapping marked inverse="true". See the discussion of bidirectional associations later in this chapter for more information.

I also think there is a typo in your cascade style (all-delete-orphan should be all,delete-orphan).

Answer 2

I encountered this error all the time.

Just put an inverse="true" on the relationship and your problem will go away!

<list name="charityTransferItemList" inverse="true" cascade="all-delete-orphan" lazy="false" >
        <key column="TSF_NO" />
        <list-index column="TSF_SEQ_NO"/>
        <one-to-many class="CharityTransferItem" />
    </list>

Basically the inverse will tell hibernate the child cannot exist without a parent, thereby causing hibernate to delete the child.

Having said that, you'll also need to remove the charityTransfer object from the collection in the parent as well.