Auto populate created_date, last_modified_date, created_by and last_modified_by in entity : Hibernate with JPA

Question

I am new to Hibernate and JPA. I have several entities, each of which contains following four columns:

1. created_by
2. last_modified_by
3. created_date
4. last_modified_date

I would like these columns to get auto-populated while saving the associated entity.

Two sample entities are as follows:

Entity 1:

    @Entity
    @Table(name = "my_entity1")
    @Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE)
    public class MyEntity1 implements Serializable {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

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

    @Column(name = "name")
    private String name;

    @Column(name = "created_by")
    private String createdBy;

    @Column(name = "last_modified_by")
    private String lastModifiedBy;

    @Column(name = "created_date")
    private Instant createdDate;

    @Column(name = "last_modified_date")
    private String lastModifiedDate;
}

Entity 2:

    @Entity
    @Table(name = "my_entity2")
    @Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE)
    public class MyEntity2 implements Serializable {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

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

    @Column(name = "description")
    private String description;

    @Column(name = "created_by")
    private String createdBy;

    @Column(name = "last_modified_by")
    private String lastModifiedBy;

    @Column(name = "created_date")
    private Instant createdDate;

    @Column(name = "last_modified_date")
    private String lastModifiedDate;
}

In this context, I have gone through following posts: How to autogenerate created or modified timestamp field?, How can you make a created_at column generate the creation date-time automatically like an ID automatically gets created?.

I am getting how to capture the dates fields but I cannot understand how to capture created_by and last_modified_by.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 03 '20 at 05:56

Auditing Author using AuditorAware and Spring Security...

To tell JPA about currently logged in user we will need to provide an implementation of AuditorAware and override getCurrentAuditor() method. And inside getCurrentAuditor() we will need to fetch currently logged in user.

Like this:

public class AuditorAwareImpl implements AuditorAware<String> {

    @Override
    public String getCurrentAuditor() {
        return "TestUser";
        // Can use Spring Security to return currently logged in user
        // return ((User) SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication().getPrincipal()).getUsername()
    }
}

Now enable jpa auditing by using @EnableJpaAuditing

@Configuration
@EnableJpaAuditing(auditorAwareRef = "auditorAware")
public class JpaConfig {
    @Bean
    public AuditorAware<String> auditorAware() {
        return new AuditorAwareImpl();
    }
}

Look at this to get more details....

I have a small doubt. Should I add setters for any of the fields of Auditable class ? I think, they would be populated on save/update of an entity which extends this class. It would not make sense to set them separately. Please correct me, if I am wrong. — Joy, May 03 '20 at 06:29
if you use jpaauditing then use createby createdate. lastmodifiedby, lastmodified annotation only. ... u can just use lombok annotation for getter setter method.. no need to set new Date in getter setter method — GolamMazid Sajib, May 03 '20 at 06:35

Auto populate created_date, last_modified_date, created_by and last_modified_by in entity : Hibernate with JPA

1 Answers1