[FIXED] Hibernate does null check initialize lazy entity?

Issue

Say I have an entity Parent with a related entity Child (nullable) with a @OneToMany(fetch = FetchType.LAZY) relationship

In my action bean, would the following code initialise the child entity?

boolean hasChild = false;

if(parent.getChild()!=null){
    hasChild = true;
}

I see in the docs it says Lazy collection fetching: a collection is fetched when the application invokes an operation upon that collection. This is the default for collections. but wasn't sure if a null check is classed as an operation

Thanks

Solution

No, a null check is not enough to reliably trigger lazy loading. You need to perform an operation that would require the presence of actual data, like calling size() on a Collection or any getter of your child object.

Please note that you will need to access the lazily loaded attribute inside a transaction.

It is not guaranteed that the lazily loaded attribute will not be loaded, even if you do nothing. FetchType.LAZY is only a hint to the persistence provider, so testing for lazy loading may result in fragile tests.

Answered By - kostja
Answer Checked By - Senaida (JavaFixing Volunteer)