Persisting new entity won't be persisted in jointable

[Amir Al]

Hi

I'm having little bit problems with granting a new user access to my web application. Let me tell you my situation, problem and hopefully get some help from here .

Web Application
==========

I'm only telling this part of my web application since others doesn't have any other impact on it. So I have a web application where administrator can create a user, when this user is created he should be given USER level access. I have done security using GlassFish 3.1.2 by creating jdbcRealm which works perfectly and no problems occurred this far. My database is Derby and it have following tables:

- USER_PROFILE
- USER_GROUPS
- GROUPS

USER_PROFILE is table where is stored all users information, such as ID, first name, last name, username, password, etc. GROUPS is table where is stored all groups information such as ID, group name and group description. USER_GROUPS is a join table where is only username and group name columns. USER_PROFILE have ManyToOne relationship to GROUPS, meaning that GROUPS can have many users and GROUPS have OneToMany relationship to USER_PROFILE which also have @joinTable annotation.

Technologies Used
============

Following technologies are used in this part of web application:

- Java as language to program the whole stuff
- JPA to handle persisting and other DAO classes
- Hibernate to take care of mapping objects to database
- Derby as Database
- GlassFish 3.1.2 is used as server and also to implement jdbcRealm
- Servlets for business logic, meaning that there is persisted the new entity when information is available (e.g. setUserFirstName("myFirstName"))
- JSP to do all required pages

Code
====

The following classes codes are necessary to explore:

- UserProfile
- Groups
- Servlet code
- UserProfileDaoImpl()
- GroupsDaoImpl()

1. Note: EntityClass is just a super class that generates ID's automatically for each class that is extended with it and it works 100% fine. Thus I will not show it code here.
2. Note: All DaoImpl() classes have general JPA commands like persist(), remove(), merge(), findByPrimaryKey(), etc.

UserProfile:

@Entity
@Table(name = "User_Profile", schema = "ADMIN")
public class UserProfile extends EntityClass {
    
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    
    @Column(name = "first_name", nullable = false)
    private String firstName;
    
    //default nullable = true
    @Column(name = "last_name")    
    private String lastName;
    
    @Column(name = "user_name", nullable = false)    
    private String userName;
    
    @Column(nullable = false)    
    private String password;
    
    @Column(nullable = false)    
    private String email;

    @ManyToMany(mappedBy = "users")
    private Collection<Meeting> meetings = new ArrayList<Meeting>();

    @Column(name = "user_type", nullable = false)
    private String userType;
    
    @ManyToOne
    private Groups userGroup;
    
    /*Getters and Setters */

Groups:

@Entity
@Table(schema = "ADMIN")
public class Groups extends EntityClass {
    
    @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
    @JoinTable(name = "USER_GROUPS", joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name = "GROUP_NAME", referencedColumnName = "GROUP_NAME"),
            inverseJoinColumns = @JoinColumn(name = "USER_NAME", referencedColumnName = "USER_NAME"))
    private Set<UserProfile> users = new HashSet<UserProfile>();
    
    @Column(name = "GROUP_NAME", nullable = false)
    private String groupName;
    
    @Column(name = "GROUP_DESC")
    private String groupDesc;

    /** Getters and Setters **/

Servlet:

@WebServlet(name = "RegistrationServlet", urlPatterns = {"/RegistrationServlet"})
public class UserRegistrationServlet extends HttpServlet {

    /**
     * Processes requests for both HTTP
     * <code>GET</code> and
     * <code>POST</code> methods.
     *
     * @param request servlet request
     * @param response servlet response
     * @throws ServletException if a servlet-specific error occurs
     * @throws IOException if an I/O error occurs
     */
    protected void processRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
            throws ServletException, IOException {

        UserProfile userProfile = new UserProfile();
        GroupsDao groupsDao = new GroupsDaoImpl();
        UserProfileDao userDao = new UserProfileDaoImpl();
        
        userProfile.setFirstName(request.getParameter("firstName"));
        userProfile.setLastName(request.getParameter("lastName"));
        userProfile.setUserName(request.getParameter("userName"));
        userProfile.setPassword(request.getParameter("userPassword"));
        userProfile.setEmail(request.getParameter("userEmail"));
        userProfile.setUserType("USER"); 
        //Setting already existing USERS group to user
        userProfile.setUserGroup(groupsDao.findByGroupName("USERS").iterator().next());
        
        userDao.save(userProfile);

        request.getRequestDispatcher("success.jsp").forward(request, response);
    }

   //POST and GET methods are default

UserProfileDaoImpl():

public class UserProfileDaoImpl extends GeneralDaoImpl<UserProfile> implements UserProfileDao {
    
    public UserProfileDaoImpl(){
        super(UserProfile.class);
    }

    @Override
    public Collection<UserProfile> findLoginDetailsByEmail(String userEmail) {
        EntityManager em = getEntityManager();
        Query q = em.createQuery("SELECT u FROM UserProfile u WHERE u.email = :uE");
        q.setParameter("uE", userEmail);
        List<UserProfile> results = q.getResultList();
        return results;
    }
    
    @Override
    public Collection<UserProfile> findAllByUsername(String userName){
        EntityManager em = getEntityManager();
        Query q = em.createQuery("SELECT u FROM UserProfile u WHERE u.userName = :uN");
        q.setParameter("uN", userName);
        List<UserProfile> results = q.getResultList();
        return results;        
    }

    @Override
    public Collection<UserProfile> findAllUsers() {
        EntityManager em = getEntityManager();
        Query q = em.createQuery("SELECT u FROM UserProfile u WHERE u.userType = 'USER'");
        List<UserProfile> results = q.getResultList();
        return results;
    }
}

GroupsDaoImpl():

public class GroupsDaoImpl extends GeneralDaoImpl<Groups> implements GroupsDao {
    
    public GroupsDaoImpl(){
        super(Groups.class);
    }

    @Override
    public Collection<Groups> findByGroupName(String groupName) {
        EntityManager em = getEntityManager();
        Query q = em.createQuery("SELECT g FROM Groups g WHERE g.groupName = :gN");
        q.setParameter("gN", groupName);
        List<Groups> results = q.getResultList();
        return results;
    }
}

Problem
=====

My problem is that whenever I persist a new user it won't be persisted in USER_GROUPS join table and this will cause "not access granted" to new user. What is the solution for this? Any help is really appreciated. User is persisted into USER_PROFILE and all its information are there 100% correct. Is this the best way to implement such thing? When groups entities with users are created first time they work well. In my web application I have same kind of implementation with ManyToMany relationship entities and they work 100%, no issues and no hassle. I'm just wondering why this can be so difficult with OneToMany relationship entities.

The Aim
=====

What I want from this is following:

1. Admin registers a user
2. User is persisted to USER_PROFILE table
3. User is persisted to USER_GROUPS join table by allocating already existing groups entities (USERS or ADMINS)