I have my domain class defined like this

public class MyDomainClass {
.................................................

private Set myCollection;

MyDomainClass(){
this.myCollection = new HashSet();
}

........

public void setMyCollection(Set myCollection){

if(myCollection != null){
this.myCollection.clear();
this.myCollection.addAll(myCollection);
}
}
.....................................
}

In other words , i have implemented the set method so that the the myCollection set is managed correctly and we dont run into the dereferencing problem. I have "myCollection" attribute mapped in hibernate with the cascase option of "all-delete-orphan". Now, I am still seeing the following exception :

"org.hibernate.HibernateException: A collection with cascade="all-delete-orphan" was no longer referenced by the owning entity instance:" . But if i remove the "myCollection" initialization in the constructor, i no longer see the problem.

Should i NOT be initializing "myCollection" variable in the constructor?

RK