I have a many to many with a link table and every time i delete one of the objects i get a foreign key violation on the link table.

I am using hibernate 3, but an older version of it

Using the author/book example here is what my mappings look like:

For author:
<set name="books" table="author_book" inverse="true" cascade="save-update" >
<key>
<column name="author_id" not-null="true"/>
</key>
<many-to-many class="Book">
<column name="book_id" unique="true"/>
</many-to-many>
</set>

For book:
<set name="authors" table="author_book" inverse="false">
<key>
<column name="book_id" not-null="true"/>
</key>
<many-to-many class="Author">
<column name="author_id" unique="true"/>
</many-to-many>
</set>

My expectation is that when I delete an author the entry in the link table will be removed as well, but the book stays active.

However, when I delete an author I get a foreign key violation on the link table. I have tried countless different settings and I always get the same result.

What am i doing wrong?
thanks

EDIT:

sorry I misread the post.

first, the Hibernate reference states "It does not usually make sense to enable cascade on a <many-to-one> or <many-to-many> association. Cascade is often useful for <one-to-one> and <one-to-many> associations."

second, you have made Author the inverse of the association, so will changing Author have any effect on Book?

Have you tried removing the Author you are deleting from the Books Set before committing?