Semi-newbie here with a question on how to model something using Hibernate.

I have a Person object, which relates to several email addresses, ore of which can be the primary email address.

I'd like to have the following API:



Can anyone suggest how to model this in Hibernate? Logically, "primary email" is a 1-to-1 association and "emails" is a 1-to-many. My database schema isn't set yet, so I'm free to design this any way that makes sense. It seems cleanest to have a Person table and EmailAddress table. But given how Hibernate maps a 1-to-1 as either a unique foreign key or a primary key association, I don't see how I can have that along with a 1-to-many mapped to the same table (since there may be non-primary EmailAddresses that map to the same Person).

Apologies if the "right design" is really obvious...

i think you'll need an id_mail on your person table to cover the primary mail.
You also need the id_person on the mail table to cover the list of mails.

By doing this, you'll be able to have

class Person {
Int idPerson;

EmailAddress getPrimaryEmail(); // i suggest you to have a many to one relation here even if there always be only one person assigned to his primary key
Set getEmails(); // here comes a one to many
}


This will be easier for the relational model, but it's only my point of view, you can go with one-to-one too