Hibernate saveOrUpdate trap for web developers and StaleStateException
Summary: Hibernate users should be aware of saveOrUpdate method if they continue to use the same persistent object even if a transaction failed at some point.
Details:
Suppose you have a persistent object bound to your web(like JSF) views. Entered some data (which will lead to a db ConstraintViolationException) and tried to save it (at your DAO service) by using saveOrUpdate method. As we expected, it will throw a ConstraintViolationException and you'll rollback the transaction.
Then, go back to the entry page, correct the wrong field value at the same object, and try to save it again. You'll get a StaleStateException since saveOrUpdate method assigned identifier values automatically to your new object when you attempt to save it first. Later, when the save operation failed, it didn't roll back your object's state to its initial state. The summary of the flow causing this error is as below;
Hibernate Annotations is my preferred way to map my entity classes, since they don't require any external file (thus keeping mapping info in your Java files), is fully integrated with all Hibernate mapping capabilities and Hibernate documentation encourages us to use this kind of configuration because it's more efficient.
Annotation driven mapping in Hibernate uses the standard JPA API annotations and introduce some specific extensions to deal with some Hibernate features. You can find a full reference in the official documentation.