ManyToMany relationship leads to StackOverFlow error

Question

I have an entity called User which has set of roles. I also have a Role entity which has set of users.( This is just a practice application for learning purposes.)

public class User {

    private String firstName;
    private String lastName;

    @ManyToMany
    @JoinTable(name="user_role", 
            joinColumns={@JoinColumn(name="user_id")}, 
            inverseJoinColumns={@JoinColumn(name="role_id")})
    private Set<Role> roles;

    //getters setters

}

public class Role {

    private String name;

    @ManyToMany(mappedBy="roles")
    private Set<Users> users;

    //getters setters

}

Table: User      (id, firstname, lastname....)
Table: Role      (id, name)
Table: User_Role (id, user_id, role_id)

The problem is - I have an UserController (REST API) to send the user list - it leads to StackOverFlow error. User tries to load role which in turn tries to load user etc.

My question is - how to avoid this? I also see many similar designs. For ex: https://viralpatel.net/blogs/hibernate-many-to-many-annotation-mapping-tutorial/

How come they have not come across such issues?

java.lang.StackOverflowError: null
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:763) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:142) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:468) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:74) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:369) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:363) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:362) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:349) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357) ~[na:1.8.0_191]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.BeanSerializerBase.serializeFields(BeanSerializerBase.java:737) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanSerializer.serialize(BeanSerializer.java:155) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serializeContents(CollectionSerializer.java:145) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serialize(CollectionSerializer.java:107) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serialize(CollectionSerializer.java:25) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanPropertyWriter.serializeAsField(BeanPropertyWriter.java:727) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.BeanSerializerBase.serializeFields(BeanSerializerBase.java:719) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanSerializer.serialize(BeanSerializer.java:155) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serializeContents(CollectionSerializer.java:145) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serialize(CollectionSerializer.java:107) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serialize(CollectionSerializer.java:25) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanPropertyWriter.serializeAsField(BeanPropertyWriter.java:727) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.BeanSerializerBase.serializeFields(BeanSerializerBase.java:719) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanSerializer.serialize(BeanSerializer.java:155) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serializeContents(CollectionSerializer.java:145) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serialize(CollectionSerializer.java:107) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serialize(CollectionSerializer.java:25) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanPropertyWriter.serializeAsField(BeanPropertyWriter.java:727) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.BeanSerializerBase.serializeFields(BeanSerializerBase.java:719) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanSerializer.serialize(BeanSerializer.java:155) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serializeContents(CollectionSerializer.java:145) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serialize(CollectionSerializer.java:107) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serialize(CollectionSerializer.java:25) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanPropertyWriter.serializeAsField(BeanPropertyWriter.java:727) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.BeanSerializerBase.serializeFields(BeanSerializerBase.java:719) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanSerializer.serialize(BeanSerializer.java:155) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serializeContents(CollectionSerializer.java:145) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serialize(CollectionSerializer.java:107) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.CollectionSerializer.serialize(CollectionSerializer.java:25) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.BeanPropertyWriter.serializeAsField(BeanPropertyWriter.java:727) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.BeanSerializerBase.serializeFields(BeanSerializerBase.java:719) ~[jackson-databind-2.9.8.jar:2.9.8]

if you return the user as json you need to add json Annotations to ignore the role's users field ... otherwise the json library (gson?) runs into this infinite loop — Pali, Apr 24 '19 at 20:42
Can you show us your stacktrace ? It may be an error during serialization. — antoine.lange, Apr 24 '19 at 22:33
you can check https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3325387/infinite-recursion-with-jackson-json-and-hibernate-jpa-issue for more details — Ananthapadmanabhan, Apr 25 '19 at 05:02
Possible duplicate of [Infinite Recursion with Jackson JSON and Hibernate JPA issue](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3325387/infinite-recursion-with-jackson-json-and-hibernate-jpa-issue) — Alan Hay, Apr 25 '19 at 10:56

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 25 '19 at 14:37

3

I would suppose that there is a cyclic reference during the json serialization. So you need to exclude one of the two fields from the serialization process by using the @JsonIgnore annotation.

See previous response here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/39985263/2311723

edited Apr 25 '19 at 14:37

LoWii

15
3

answered Apr 25 '19 at 04:10

antoine.lange

731
6
24

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 26 '19 at 05:16

0

Or you can convert your entity to DTO (data transfer object) and return the DTO instead. I recommend not return entity directly

answered Apr 26 '19 at 05:16

Sann Tran

159
5

ManyToMany relationship leads to StackOverFlow error

2 Answers2