How will you create a table on this? I have:

public class ContactRole {
private String id;
private String name;
private ContactRole partner;
}

where if we have,

ContactRole contactRoleA = new ContactRole();
ContactRole contactRoleB = new ContactRole();

contactRoleA.setPartner(contactRoleB);
contactRoleB.setPartner(contactRoleA);

Both can only exist only once. Where if i have an Employee as ContactRoleA and Employer as ContactRoleB, this cannot be repeated again in any instance like Employee ContactRoleA and Consultant ContactRoleB. This should be illegal.

Well I don't get exactly what you are saying here, but you should be able to do this with unique constraints in the DB. Place an unique constraint on the id and the relation fk for partner (in combination).

PS: Please try to use proper subjects in your posts.

Yes, creating this in the table directly is easy. But what i meant is creating this via hibernate-mapping. Is this available in hibernate? Currently i have this mapping:

<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="com.eon.cms.vo.ContactRole" table="contact_role">
<id name="id" type="long" unsaved-value="0">
<generator class="native"/>
</id>
<many-to-one name="partner" column="role_id_2"/>
<property name="name" length="50"/>
</class>
</hibernate-mapping>

But i dont think part

<many-to-one name="partner" column="role_id_2"/>

is pointing to the ContactRole too...

please clarify...

Yes it's very annoying for people helping ion this forum.

Can you elaborate your needs, you don't give enough information.

ok here it goes:

id name partner_id
1 Employee 2
2 Employer 1
3 Friend 3
4 Consultant 4
5 Consumer 6
6 Producer 5


right now with my mappings, im inserting data to contact_role by :

Add
1. create the first ContactRole (new ContactRole("Employee");
2. save contactRoleA (the partner id is still null)
3. create the second ContactRole ( new ContactRole("Employer");
4. set the partner id of the second one with the first one then save
5. edit the first one and set its partner id to the second record then
save

* there's no problem if the record is the same (like the Friend) i only need to add once but with two records i need to do those steps.
* name is unique

Edit
1. Load the two objects and check which one has change then delete the other one

Lets say i want to edit Employee so that its partner will be Consumer
so Employer and Producer will be deleted since a record can only have one partner.

* but what if the records point to itself ( like Friend)?


Is there a better way to do this?


thanks....

raymond