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I am new to Hibernate and went through the Hibernate tutorial last week. I have a few doubts about methods save, update, saveOrUpdate and merge in the Session class. These are:

  • save method: it is used to insert the newly created object in the datastore. (Basically identifier value will be 0 for this). Like I create a new customer and call save operation, it will persist it in the datastore and generate the identifier.

    Is this correct? And if we call save on already persistent object not sure what will happen?

  • update method: it is used to update the already persistent object in the datastore.(Basically identifier value will be some non zero value for this). Like I load a new customer and call update operation after update of some field value, it will update it in datastore.

    As per my understanding it should fail with some exception because as per API update is for detached object. Is this correct? If yes, what should we call to update the object in the same session (I mean if object is not detached). Another point is: what will happen if we call update on newly created object?

  • saveOrUpdate method: it will call either of above based on unsaved-value checks (which it must be doing based on identifier zero or non zero value, right?) so if we have persistent customer object and we update last name of his and create a new account also, then saveOrUpdate will take care of it.

    Did I understand that correctly?

  • Merge method: it will act like update but here if a persistent object with the same identifier is already in the session it will update the detached object values in the persistent object and save it.

    But if there is no persistent instance currently associated with the session, this will load the persistent object from the datastore and then update the value of detached object in loaded persistent object and then update it.

    Did I also get that?

Mat
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M Sach
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7 Answers7

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You have most things right, but update works a little differently from how you were describing it. If an object is in the session (i.e. persistant), update is completely unnecessary. Hibernate handles persisting any changes to objects in the session when the session is flushed. Calling update on them will do nothing (and may incur a performance penalty; I'm not sure).

Update is designed to be called on detached objects, i.e. those that are now outside the session they were loaded in. @hvgotcodes explanation seems to be incorrect, because update should only be called if the object is not in the session. update can fail if an instance of the object is already in the session. Merge should be used in that case. It merges the changes of the detached object with an object in the session, if it exists. If there's no object in the session, it will create a new one.

So often you can avoid calling update/merge at all, but if you end up having to call one, merge handles a broader range of situations. My understanding is the only reason to use update is for better performance, assuming you know it won't error.

This thread has a pretty good summary of some other hibernate methods, as well.

Edit: I just thought I should say there are more differences between merge and update than I originally said. Update modifies the given entity to be persistent, whereas merge returns a new persistent entity. For merge, you're supposed to throw away the old object. Another difference is merge does a dirty check by selecting from the DB before deciding whether to write its data, whereas update always persists its data to the DB whether it's dirty or not.

There are probably other small differences. It's always good to test Hibernate behavior out by logging the generated SQL, because the behavior doesn't always match the docs, at least in my experience.

Community
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Naliba
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  • "whereas update always persists its data to the DB whether it's dirty or not" - this is not true. If you implement CustomEntityDirtinessStrategy you can get the best from 2 worlds with session.update: do not trigger additional select and do not trigger update on unchanged entities. – Aleksandr Jan 09 '19 at 19:39
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You are exactly right in all of your assessments. You get it.

For your first question, if i recall correctly, save specifically does an insert. So calling save again will result in another row in the db.

For your second question, update updates an object in the session. So if the object is in the session it will update. If the object is not in the session, you should call merge. I believe calling update for a detached instance will result in an exception.

hvgotcodes
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  • Thanks hvgotcodes. If you can give brief answer about grey/quoted part it will be very helpful. – M Sach Sep 19 '11 at 18:21
  • Hi hvgotcodes , i dont think fisrt and second explanation are correct. Because save check must be checking identifier value for zero but for already persistent object, it is not zero. So it shud not insert the new row. Regarding second answer as per api documentation update is also for detached object . Not sure if we update the already persistent object which method we should call? – M Sach Sep 19 '11 at 18:39
  • @mohit, did you actually try these things? right a unit test and try it out. – hvgotcodes Sep 19 '11 at 19:26
  • Your first answer is wrong. By calling save(object) more then once hibernate not going to fire more then one query to database, because hibernate will use its first level of caching (Session), and hibernate works on proxy. – subhashis Dec 11 '13 at 08:55
  • Actually, both first and second answers are wrong. Calling save twice in the session causes only one insert, calling update on persistent object is unnecessary but wil not cause an exception and you can of course call update on detached object. – pzeszko Sep 10 '15 at 06:54
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@Naliba has given excellent answer over Update() method.

Hibernate life cycle in the following image helps get an idea above the methods.

enter image description here

Example: Let us see merge() method situation.

SessionFactory factory = cfg.buildSessionFactory();
Session session1 = factory.openSession();

Student student1 = null;
Object object1 = session1.get(Student.class, new Integer(101));
student1 = (Student)object1;
session1.close();

student1.setMarks(97);// -->object will be in some RAM location, not in the session1 cache

Session session2 = factory.openSession();
Student student2 = null;
Object object2 = session2.get(Student.class, new Integer(101));
student2 = (Student)object2;
Transaction tx=session2.beginTransaction();

session2.merge(student1);

Above student1 is in detached state, modified that detached object student1, now if we call update() method then hibernate will throws an error.

In this session2, we called session2.merge(s1); now into student2 object student1 changes will be merged and saved into the database.

Premraj
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session.update() - It is used for a scenario when you have load an object Person1 from hibernate session. Now it is being used in application - may be on client side also, has been updated. We want to save it again. We know that no change has been done in Person object in data base. So we can simply use update.

session.merge() - In above scenario, if changes have been done in person data before saving the changed Person1 object, then we should use merge. It will merge the changes.

session.save() - It can be used to save a new object. It returns the serialiable identity.

session.persist() - It is same as save(), but is void method and does not return anything.

session.saveOrUpdate() - This method will work for both new and old objects. If object is new, it will work like simple save or if object is already persistent, it will work like update.

session.lock() - It is used only to take the lock on object or you can say to check the version of object. It is not meant for updating the object. It should be used to reattach the object, only if you are sure that object state is not changed in database already. Otherwise, it may override the changes. < Inviting more points on this.

Maclane
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update() is for the detached objects , and for transient objects . if invoke on persistent objects it will throw a NonUniqueObjectException, and this will be addressed by merge().

Sebastian
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Gani VastHad
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  • I don't think _update_ is for _transient_ object. StaleStateException will be thrown if you call update on _transient_ object. – Ken Block Jan 16 '15 at 03:19
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Merge Does Following

Merge has intelligence. It has lot of pre-checks before it go actual merge(if required)

  1. if Object is transient, It simply fires INSERT query makes object persistent(attached to session)
  2. if Object is detached, fires select query to check whether data modified or not if modified, fires UPDATE query otherwise just ignore merge task.

where as session.update

  1. throws exception if object is transient.
  2. if Object is detached, it simply fires UPDATE query irrespective of data changes to object.

session.merge is expensive than update

Ram
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You should apply the differnce between save() and saveOrUpdate method in your code to get the best performance:

The save() method returns the identifier generated by the database. On the other hand, saveOrUpdate() can do INSERT or UPDATE depending upon whether object exists in database or not. And saveOrUpdate does a select first to determine if it needs to do an insert or an update. So you should use saveOrUpdate in case update query.

Another key difference between save() and saveOrUpdate() method is that save() method is used to make a transient object to persistent state but saveOurUpdate() can make both transient (new object) and detached (existing object) object into persistent state. So that saveOrUpdate() is often used to re-attach a detached object into Session.

From the post Difference between save and saveOrUpdate in Hibernate

David Pham
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