Silent failure to edit a OneToMany association with PUT/PATCH [DATAREST-822]

PJ Weisberg opened DATAREST-822 and commented

I have two entities defined like this:

@Entity
public class Vehicle implements Identifiable<Long> {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "vehicle")
    private Set<Worker> workers = new HashSet<>();

    // etc.
}

@Entity
@NoArgsConstructor
public class Worker implements Identifiable<Long>{

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinTable(
            name = "WorkerVehicle",
            joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name = "WorkerID"),
            inverseJoinColumns = @JoinColumn(name = "VehicleID")
    )
    private Vehicle vehicle;

    // etc.
}

I can add a relationship by setting the Vehicle of the worker, like this:

PUT /hal/workers/5/vehicle HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: text/uri-list

http://localhost:8080/hal/vehicles/3

Then when I GET http://localhost:8080/hal/vehicles/3/workers, the result contains Worker 5.

However, if I try to add a worker to a vehicle, like this:

PUT /hal/vehicles/3/workers HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: text/uri-list

http://localhost:8080/hal/workers/1

I get a response of "204 No Content", but a subsequent GET of /hal/vehicles/3/workers/ does not include Worker 1.

I understand it may be intentional for you to only be able to modify the relationship from one side, but if that's the case then the response should be in the 4xx range rather than 2xx

2 votes, 3 watchers