Hibernate version: 3.1

Hello,

could someone tell me what the difference between persist() and save() is? The manual only says
but I don't really know what the EBJ3 early draft says about this.

TIA,

Peter

I don't often reply to myself, but please at least tell me if my question is too stupid or too difficult. The manual only gives one vague hint to persist() versus save(), I'd really like to know what the difference is.

The migration guide doesn't mention I should now use persist() instead of save(), but all examples in the 3.1 manual seem to be using persist not. Is there any difference?

Read the API documentation. Use whatever you like best.

OK, reading the latest API documentation it still seems the same, except:

For persist() it says which doesn't tell me much.

Also, for save() it says: .

Also save() returns the generated identifier (which you mostly ignore) and persist doesn't.

So, does this "semantics defined by JSR-200" mean anything special (as compared to save())?

Does persist() not assign the generated identifier? I can hardly imagine, but the javadoc doesn't seem consistent in that case.

Thanks,

Peter

i went to find JSR-220, got to download the pdf ... note that this is still in draft status, which means it's still subject to change. I didnt want to read the whole 190 pages ... section 3.2.1 talks about persist, in particular:

"If X is a new entity, it becomes managed. The entity X will be entered into the database at or before transaction commit or as a result of the flush operation."

So what does that mean about identifiers? After some more searching, i found this note:
"A managed entity instance is an instance with a persistent identity that is currently associated with a persistence context."

I would infer from "persistent identity" that an identifier has been assigned.

But it would be nice if the API doc could just say that instead of referring us to a 190-page document.

I've pinged Emmanuel a few weeks ago with the same question. It seems like they didn't all agree on that, hence, the persist() method doesn't return an identifier. It definitely has to be resolved, because an object in persistent state is supposed to have an identifier value. I'd expect that the method signature changes before final release of the spec.

Oh, and Hibernate only cascades saveOrUpdate() (or both separate) at flush time, not persist(). EntityManager cascades persist() at flush time. This is documented. Quite a significant difference. My recommendation is to not use persist() on Session, there is no benefit here.

Not sure exactly what you meant, just the timing? or that persist does not cascade at all? The current hibernate documentation indicates that Session.persist() does cascade as long as 'cascade="persist"' is specified. But it seems to indicate that the cascading is done at the time of the persist() call, not at flush time.

That is exactly what I wrote and what is repeated in the reference documentation, section about "flushing".

Thanks for the clarification. At least this tells me that persist() is still somewhat ill defined, and I'd better stay away from it and keep using save() for the time being.

In case anybody finds this thread...

persist() is well defined. It makes a transient instance persistent. However, it doesn't guarantee that the identifier value will be assigned to the persistent instance immediately, the assignment might happen at flush time. The spec doesn't say that, which is the problem I have with persist().

persist() also guarantees that it will not execute an INSERT statement if it is called outside of transaction boundaries. This is useful in long-running conversations with an extended Session/persistence context.

A method like persist() is required.

save() does not guarantee the same, it returns an identifier, and if an INSERT has to be executed to get the identifier (e.g. "identity" generator, not "sequence"), this INSERT happens immediately, no matter if you are inside or outside of a transaction. This is not good in a long-running conversation with an extended Session/persistence context.

Sadly, 5 years later, this thread still remains the only clear source of information about this subject. The Hibernate documentation, while verbose, is void of all but the most trivial usage information. Why christian's last post is not in the Session javadoc is just another Hibernate documentation mystery.

There are two methods for different purposes.
When a transient object is attached to a session through save method either an identifier for the database (in most cases its the primary key) is assigned by the application or generated by the db. Bu this is not yet the object is saved in the db. This step is just to create an identifier in the db for the object. And when the session is flushed implicitly or explicitly the state of all properties gets saved in the db. So with save the persistence logic is a two step process that happens during different times.

But for persist both the steps get executed during session flush. Hence Persist is more useful say when inserting a batch of objects to data base or you are not confident you will save the object.