10/3/2021 How to Convert a Hibernate Proxy to a Real Entity Object | Baeldung

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How to Convert a Hibernate

Proxy to a Real Entity Object
Last modi ed: January 25, 2021

by baeldung (https://www.baeldung.com/author/baeldung/)

Persistence (https://www.baeldung.com/category/persistence/)
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1. Overview
In this tutorial, we'll learn how to convert a Hibernate proxy (/hibernate-proxy-
load-method) to a real entity object. Before that, we'll understand when
Hibernate creates a proxy object. Then, we'll talk about why Hibernate proxy is
useful. And nally, we'll simulate a scenario where there's a need to un proxy
an object.
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2. When Does Hibernate Create a Proxy

Object?
Hibernate uses proxy objects to allow lazy loading (/hibernate-lazy-eager-
loading). To better visualize the scenario, let's look at the PaymentReceipt and
Payment entities:

@Entity
public class PaymentReceipt {
...
@OneToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
private Payment payment;
...
}

@Entity
@Inheritance(strategy = InheritanceType.TABLE_PER_CLASS)
public abstract class Payment {
...
@ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
protected WebUser webUser;
...
}

For instance, loading either of these entities will result in Hibernate creating a

proxy object for the associated eld with FetchType.LAZY.
To demonstrate, let's create and run an integration test:

@Test
public void givenPaymentReceipt_whenAccessingPayment_thenVerifyType() {
PaymentReceipt paymentReceipt =
entityManager.find(PaymentReceipt.class, 3L);
Assert.assertTrue(paymentReceipt.getPayment() instanceof
HibernateProxy);
}

From the test, we've loaded a PaymentReceipt and veri ed that the payment
object isn't an instance of CreditCardPayment — it's a HibernateProxy
object.
In contrast, without lazy loading, the previous test would fail as the returned
payment object would be an instance of CreditCardPayment.
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Additionally, it's worth mentioning that Hibernate is using bytecode

instrumentation to create a proxy object.
To verify this, we can add a breakpoint on the line of the integration test's
assertion statement and run it in debug mode. Now, let's see what the
debugger shows:

paymentReceipt = {PaymentReceipt@5042}
payment = {Payment$HibernateProxy$CZIczfae@5047}
"com.baeldung.jpa.hibernateunproxy.CreditCardPayment@2"
$$_hibernate_interceptor = {ByteBuddyInterceptor@5053}

From the debugger, we can see that Hibernate is using Byte Buddy (/byte-
buddy), which is a library for generating Java classes dynamically at run-time.

3. Why Is Hibernate Proxy Useful?

3.1. Hibernate Proxy for Lazy Loading

We've learned a bit about this earlier. To give more signi cance to it, let's try
removing the lazy loading mechanism from both PaymentReceipt and
Payment entities:

public class PaymentReceipt {

...
@OneToOne
private Payment payment;
...
}

public abstract class Payment {

...
@ManyToOne
protected WebUser webUser;
...
}

Now, let's quickly retrieve a PaymentReceipt and check the generated SQL
from the logs:

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select
paymentrec0_.id as id1_2_0_,
paymentrec0_.payment_id as payment_3_2_0_,
paymentrec0_.transactionNumber as transact2_2_0_,
payment1_.id as id1_1_1_,
payment1_.amount as amount2_1_1_,
payment1_.webUser_id as webuser_3_1_1_,
payment1_.cardNumber as cardnumb1_0_1_,
payment1_.clazz_ as clazz_1_,
webuser2_.id as id1_3_2_,
webuser2_.name as name2_3_2_
from
PaymentReceipt paymentrec0_
left outer join
(
select
id,
amount,
webUser_id,
cardNumber,
1 as clazz_
from
CreditCardPayment
) payment1_
on paymentrec0_.payment_id=payment1_.id
left outer join
WebUser webuser2_
on payment1_.webUser_id=webuser2_.id
where
paymentrec0_.id=?

As we can see from the logs, the query for the PaymentReceipt contains

multiple join statements.
Now, let's run it with lazy loading in place:

select
paymentrec0_.id as id1_2_0_,
paymentrec0_.payment_id as payment_3_2_0_,
paymentrec0_.transactionNumber as transact2_2_0_
from
PaymentReceipt paymentrec0_
where
paymentrec0_.id=?

Clearly, the generated SQL is simpli ed by omitting all the unnecessary join
statements.
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10/3/2021 How to Convert a Hibernate Proxy to a Real Entity Object | Baeldung

3.2. Hibernate Proxy for Writing Data

To illustrate, let's use it for creating a Payment and assigning a WebUser to it.
Without using a proxy, this would result in two SQL statements: a
SELECT statement to retrieve the WebUser and an INSERT statement
for Payment creation.
Let's create a test using the proxy:

@Test
public void
givenWebUserProxy_whenCreatingPayment_thenExecuteSingleStatement() {
entityManager.getTransaction().begin();

WebUser webUser = entityManager.getReference(WebUser.class, 1L);

Payment payment = new CreditCardPayment(new BigDecimal(100), webUser,
"CN-1234");
entityManager.persist(payment);

entityManager.getTransaction().commit();
Assert.assertTrue(webUser instanceof HibernateProxy);
}

It's worth highlighting that we're using entityManager.getReference(…) to obtain

a proxy object.
Next, let's run the test and check the logs:

insert
into
CreditCardPayment
(amount, webUser_id, cardNumber, id)
values
(?, ?, ?, ?)

Here, we can see that, when using the proxy, Hibernate only executed a
single statement: an INSERT statement for Payment creation.

4. Scenario: The Need for Unproxying

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Given our domain model, let's suppose we're retrieving a PaymentReceipt. As

we already know, it's associated with a Payment entity that has an inheritance
strategy of Table-per-Class (/hibernate-inheritance#table-per-class) and a
lazy fetch type.
In our case, based on the populated data, the associated Payment of
the PaymentReceipt is of type CreditCardPayment. However, since we're using
lazy loading, it would be a proxy object.
Now, let's look at the CreditCardPayment entity:

@Entity
public class CreditCardPayment extends Payment {

private String cardNumber;

...
}

Indeed, it wouldn't be possible to retrieve the cardNumber  eld from

the CreditCardPayment class without unproxying the payment object.
Regardless, let's try casting the payment object into a CreditCardPayment and
see what will happen:

@Test
public void
givenPaymentReceipt_whenCastingPaymentToConcreteClass_thenThrowClassCastEx
ception() {
PaymentReceipt paymentReceipt =
entityManager.find(PaymentReceipt.class, 3L);
assertThrows(ClassCastException.class, () -> {
CreditCardPayment creditCardPayment = (CreditCardPayment)
paymentReceipt.getPayment();
});
}

From the test, we saw the need to cast the payment object into

a CreditCardPayment. However, because the payment object is still a
Hibernate proxy object, we've encountered a ClassCastException.

5. Hibernate Proxy to Entity Object

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Since Hibernate 5.2.10, we can use the built-in static method for unproxying
Hibernate entities:

Hibernate.unproxy(paymentReceipt.getPayment());

Let's create a nal integration test using this approach:

@Test
public void
givenPaymentReceipt_whenPaymentIsUnproxied_thenReturnRealEntityObject() {
PaymentReceipt paymentReceipt =
entityManager.find(PaymentReceipt.class, 3L);
Assert.assertTrue(Hibernate.unproxy(paymentReceipt.getPayment())
instanceof CreditCardPayment);
}

From the test, we can see that we've successfully converted a Hibernate
proxy to a real entity object.
On the other hand, here's a solution before Hibernate 5.2.10:

HibernateProxy hibernateProxy = (HibernateProxy)

paymentReceipt.getPayment();
LazyInitializer initializer =
hibernateProxy.getHibernateLazyInitializer();
CreditCardPayment unproxiedEntity = (CreditCardPayment)
initializer.getImplementation();

6. Conclusion
In this tutorial, we've learned how to convert a Hibernate proxy to a real entity
object. In addition to that, we've discussed how the Hibernate proxy works and
why it's useful. Then, we simulated a situation where there's a need to un
proxy an object.
Lastly, we ran several integration tests to demonstrate our examples and
verify our solution.
As always, the full source code of the article is available over on GitHub
(https://github.com/eugenp/tutorials/tree/master/persistence-
modules/java-jpa-3).
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