Spring - How to insert a nested bean using a SimpleJdbcDaoSupport class

Question

I have two beans (POJOs) - a Customer and an address class defined like this:

public class Customer {
  private String name = null;
  private Address address = null;

  public Customer() {
    address = new Address();
  }

  public String getName() {
    return name;
  }

  public void setName(name) {
    this.name = name;
  }
  //additional setters/getters for various properties
}

public class Address {
  private String street = null;

  public String getStreet() {
    return street;
  }

  public void setStreet(street) {
    this.street = street;
  }
  //additional setters/getters for various properties
}

I'm trying to insert this to the database using like this:

public class CustomerDAO extends SimpleJdbcDaoSupport {
  public int addOrganization(Customer customer) {

    SimpleJdbcInsert insertCustomer = null;
    BeanPropertySqlParameterSource params = null;
    Number customerID = null;

    insertTransaction = new SimpleJdbcInsert(getDataSource()).withTableName("customers")
            .usingGeneratedKeyColumns("customerID");

    params = new BeanPropertySqlParameterSource(customer);

    customerID = insertTransaction.executeAndReturnKey(params);

    return customerID.intValue();
  }
}

The problem is I get an Invalid argument value: java.io.NotSerializableException and it doesn't insert the Customer. I can remove the address from the database and it will insert the other customer data. Or, I can do something like this:

MapSqlParameterSource params = new MapSqlParameterSource();
params.addValue("name", customer.getName());
params.addValue("street", customer.getAddress().getStreet());

but that eliminates the ease of the BeanPropertySqlParameterSource class and if I add or remove any properties, I have to add another line.

Is there an easy way to store the nested Address bean without having to manually add each value? How do I have to define the database and/or beans to make this happen?

Answer 1

you can define inner beans. Take a look at section 3.3.2.3 on inner beans. This is the link http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/2.5.x/reference/beans.html#beans-inner-beans

Answer 2

Your solution is the simplest.

If you must insert data from nested objects and you don't like to add parameters to a map, then you should consider using JPA instead.