How to introduce multi-column constraint with JPA annotations?

Question

I am trying to introduce a multi-key constraint on a JPA-mapped entity:

public class InventoryItem {
    @Id
    private Long id;

    @Version 
    private Long version;

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn("productId")
    private Product product;

    @Column(nullable=false);
    private long serial;
}

Basically (product, serial) pair should be unique, but I only found a way to say that serial should be unique. This obviously isn't a good idea since different products might have same serial numbers.

Is there a way to generate this constraint via JPA or am I forced to manually create it to DB?

Answer 1

You can declare unique constraints using the @Table(uniqueConstraints = ...) annotation in your entity class, i.e.

@Entity
@Table(uniqueConstraints=
           @UniqueConstraint(columnNames = {"productId", "serial"}) 
public class InventoryItem {
    ...
}

Note that this does not magically create the unique constraint in the database, you still need a DDL for it to be created. But seems like you are using some sort of automated tool for creating the database based on JPA entity definitions.

Answer 2

You can do this via a Unique constraint on the Table/Entity, see this link:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ias/toplink/jpa/resources/toplink-jpa-annotations.html#UniqueConstraint