I'm having trouble about having to use a single DTO object or a DTO object for every Entity object.
For example I have 3 classes: Book, Author and Publisher.
Book.java
#Entity
#Table(name = "tbl_book")
public class Book {
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
#Column(name = "id")
private Long id;
#Column(name = "description")
private String description;
other different fields...
}
Author.java
#Entity
#Table(name = "tbl_author")
public class Book {
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
#Column(name = "id")
private Long id;
#Column(name = "description")
private String description;
other different fields...
}
Publisher.java
#Entity
#Table(name = "tbl_publisher")
public class Book {
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
#Column(name = "id")
private Long id;
#Column(name = "description")
private String description;
other different fields...
}
and MyDTO.java
public class MyDTO {
private Long id;
private String description;
constructor id, description...
getters and setters...
}
I want to select only specific fields (id and description) with EntityManager:
em.createQuery("SELECT NEW MyDTO(id,description) FROM Book");
But my question is should I use a single DTO object(which is MyDTO) for all projection? Something like:
em.createQuery("SELECT NEW MyDTO(id,description) FROM Author");
em.createQuery("SELECT NEW MyDTO(id,description) FROM Publisher");
Tutorials about using DTO for projection just saying use DTO for read and use Entity for write but they are not telling about having a single object DTO or not. Will you please provide an example why single DTO or why DTO for every Entity. Thank you!
I've been working with DTOs for a while now, and here's some things I can share:
Try building a DTO hierarchy based on your needs (abstract classes and/or interfaces)
Even if your BookDTO 'just' extends a superclass (AbstractIdDescriptionDTO for instance), it's always more readable (IMO), and it's less tedious to maintain, and you can't misinterpret an object for another
I never use the new DTO syntax, I implemented an automatic converter instead
In my opinion create a DTO for each field. Having a single DTO couples your objects a lot. For example if in Book class you change the description to something else all your code will not work anymore.
Even if you start with thinking of a good name for the DTO you will see the problem. "MyDTO" doesn't sounds good and doesn't show its purpose but you won't be able to think of a meaningful name.
And last but not least there is the single responsibility principle that is a good thing and having one DTO to present multiple objects kind of breaks it. It's not a good practice and breaks the SOLID principle to have one class that represents different types of objects. If your projects share some common properties it's better to have separate classes and create an Interface for the common part. That's just standard OOP design. It's not related to DTOs
That's just my opinion. I might be wrong.
Also creating the DTOs like that in the JPQL query kind of makes it hard coded and harder to maintain. You can do something like:
.setResultTransformer( Transformers.aliasToBean( PostDTO.class ) )
for your query or there are other ways to do it.
Related
I was given this assignment, just for practice, it became very long and challenging, but it has taught me a lot, on lambdas and JPA mainly.
It is a basic Rest API, which is used to create Hotels, Rooms, Guests, Reservations, types of guests, types of rooms, etc.
My initial problem was learning about JPA relations, OneToOne, OneToMany, etc., unidirectional, bidirectional, and what not.
I'm also using PostgreSQL, using "sping.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=create-drop(or update)", change as needed, when I want to recreate the DB for whatever reason.
So I'm very happy and excited using my new #Annotations to relate my Entities, and fetch back lists of whatever information I needed, came across multiple problems, read many many questions here, solved my problems, but now I have come across a new problem, but then, started questioning my approach, maybe I should not leave everything to JPA.
Let me show you what I mean. I'm going to keep my classes short to show only relevant information.
I have my reservation entity.
#Data
#Entity
#Table(name = "reservation")
public class Reservation {
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
private Long id;
#OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
#JoinColumn(name = "guest", referencedColumnName = "id")
#JsonManagedReference
#JsonIgnoreProperties({"hibernateLazyInitializer", "handler"})
private Guest guest;
#OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
#JoinColumn(name = "room", referencedColumnName = "id")
private Room room;
#ManyToMany(fetch = FetchType.LAZY,
cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
#JoinTable(name = "reservation_rooms",
joinColumns = { #JoinColumn(name = "reservation_id" )},
inverseJoinColumns = { #JoinColumn(name = "room_id") }
)
#JsonIgnoreProperties({"hibernateLazyInitializer", "handler"})
private List<ReservationRoom> roomList = new ArrayList<>();
private LocalDate start_date;
private LocalDate end_date;
private Boolean check_in;
private Boolean check_out;
public void addRoom(Room room) {
this.roomList.add(room);
}
public void removeRoom(Long id) {
Room room = this.roomList.stream().filter(g -> g.getId() == id).findFirst().orElse(null);
if (room != null) {
this.roomList.remove(room);
}
}
}
This is my Room entity.
#Data
#Entity
#Table(name = "room")
public class Room {
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
private Long id;
private String name;
private String description;
private Integer floor;
#JsonProperty("max_guests")
private Integer maxGuests;
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
#JsonBackReference
private Hotel hotel;
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
#JsonProperty("type")
#JsonIgnoreProperties({"hibernateLazyInitializer", "handler"})
private RoomType roomType;
#Override
public boolean equals(Object o) {
if (this == o) {
return true;
}
if (!(o instanceof Room)) {
return false;
}
return id != null && id.equals(((Room) o).getId());
}
#Override
public int hashCode() {
return getClass().hashCode();
}
}
And this is my Guest entity.
#Data
#Entity
#Table(name = "guest")
public class Guest {
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
private Long id;
private String first_name;
private String last_name;
private String email;
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
#JsonProperty("type")
#JsonIgnoreProperties({"hibernateLazyInitializer", "handler"})
private GuestType guest_type;
#ManyToMany(fetch = FetchType.LAZY,
cascade = {
CascadeType.PERSIST,
CascadeType.MERGE
},
mappedBy = "guestList"
)
#JsonBackReference
#JsonIgnoreProperties({"hibernateLazyInitializer", "handler"})
private List<Reservation> reservationList = new ArrayList<>();
public Guest(){}
public Guest(Long id) {
this.id = id;
}
public List<Reservation> getReservationList() {
return reservationList;
}
public void setReservationList(List<Reservation> reservationList) {
this.reservationList = reservationList;
}
}
At the beginning a reservation could only have 1 room, but the requirement changed and it can have multiple rooms now. So now, the guest list needs to be linked to the room linked to the reservation, and not directly to the reservation. (I know I have a Guest and a Room, and also the List of both, this is because I'm using the single Guest as the name for the reservation, and the single Room, as the "Main" room, but don't mind that please).
Letting JPA aside, because every challenge I have faced I would ask my self "how to do it JPAish?", and then research how to do it with JPA (that's how I learned about the #ManyToMany, etc. annotations).
What I would do is just create a new table, to relate the reservations to the room (which is already done in my entities with JPA), and then add also de guest id.
So, this new table, would have a PK with reservation_id, room_id and guest_id. Very easy, then create my Reservation model, which have a List of Room, and this Room model, would have a List of Guest. Easy.
But I don't want to add a List of Guest in my current Room entity, because I have an endpoint and maybe a couple of other functions, which retrieves my Room entity, and I don't want to add a List of Guest, because as the time passes, this list would grow bigger and bigger, and it is information you don't need to be passing around.
So I did some research and found that I can extend my entity with #Inheritance or #MappedSuperclass, and I could create maybe a Reservation_Room model, which includes a List of Guest and add a List of Reservation_Room instead of a List of Room in my Reservation Entity, which I really wouldn't know if it is even possible.
Having said that, and before I keep researching and start making modifications to my code, it got me wondering, if this would be the right approach? Or if I'm forcing JPA too much on this? What would be the best approach for this? Can a 3 id relation table be easily implemented/mapped on JPA?
The main goal would be to have my Room entity exposed as it is, but when a Room is added to a Reservation, this Room would also have a List of Guest. Can I do this JPAish? Or should I create a new model and fill with the information as needed? This wouldn't exempt me from creating my 3 ids table.
Based on what you wrote here, I think you might be at a point where you are realizing that the persistence model doesn't always match the presentation model, which you use in your HTTP endpoints. This is usually the point where people discover DTOs, which you also seem to have heard of.
DTOs should be adapted/created to the needs of the representation of an endpoint. If you don't want to expose certain state, then simply don't declare a getter/field for that data in a DTO. The persistence model should simply be designed in a way, so that you can persist and query data the way you need it. Translation between DTOs and entities is a separate thing, for which I can only recommend you to give Blaze-Persistence Entity Views a try.
I created the library to allow easy mapping between JPA models and custom interface or abstract class defined models, something like Spring Data Projections on steroids. The idea is that you define your target structure(domain model) the way you like and map attributes(getters) via JPQL expressions to the entity model.
A DTO model for your use case could look like the following with Blaze-Persistence Entity-Views:
#EntityView(Reservation.class)
public interface ReservationDto {
#IdMapping
Long getId();
GuestDto getGuest();
List<RoomDto> getRooms();
}
#EntityView(Guest.class)
public interface GuestDto {
#IdMapping
Long getId();
String getName();
}
#EntityView(Room.class)
public interface RoomDto {
#IdMapping
Long getId();
String getName();
}
Querying is a matter of applying the entity view to a query, the simplest being just a query by id.
ReservationDto a = entityViewManager.find(entityManager, ReservationDto.class, id);
The Spring Data integration allows you to use it almost like Spring Data Projections: https://persistence.blazebit.com/documentation/entity-view/manual/en_US/index.html#spring-data-features
Page<ReservationDto> findAll(Pageable pageable);
The best part is, it will only fetch the state that is actually necessary!
I would say that you need to add a layer between persistence and the endpoints. So, you will have Controllers/Services/Repositories (in the Spring world). You should use entities as return type from Repositories (so used them in Services as well), but return DTOs to Controllers. In this way, you will decouple any modification that you do between them (e.g. you may lose interest to return a field stored in an entity, or you may want to add more information to the dto from other sources).
In this particular case, I would create 4 tables: Reservations, Guests, Rooms, GuestsForReservation.
Guests will contain id + guests data (name, phone number, etc)
Rooms will contain id + room data
GuestsForReservation will contain id + reservationId + guestId (so you can get the list of guests for each reservation). FK for reservationId and guestId, PK for synthetic id mentioned.
Reservations will contain id (synthetic), room id, date from, date to, potentially main guest id (it could be the person paying the bill, if it makes sense for you). No link to the GuestForReservation table, or you can have a list of GuestForReservation if you need to.
When you want to reserve a room, you have a ReservationRequest object, which will go to the ReservationService, here you are going to query the ReservationRepository by roomId and dates. If nothing is returned, you create the various entities and persist them in ReservationRepository and GuestForReservation repository.
By using the service and the combination of various repositories, you should be able to get all the information that you need (list of guests per room, list of guests per date, etc). At the service level, you then map the data you need to a DTO and pass it to the controller (in the format that you need), or even to other services (depending on your needs).
For what concern the mapping between entities and DTOs, there are different options, you could simply create a Component called ReservationMapper (for example) and do it yourself (take an entity and build a DTO with what you need); implements Converter from the Springframework; use MapStruct (cumbersome in my opinion); etc.
If you want to represent in JPA an id made of multiple columns, usually #Embeddable classes are used (you should mark them as EmbeddedId when you use them), you can google them for more info.
I'm developing a multi language application and My tables are designed for this purpose as well. for example I have a Country class like this:
#Entity
#Table(name = "province")
public class Province {
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
private Long id;
#ManyToOne
#JoinColumn(name = "country_id", nullable = false)
private Country country;
#OneToMany
#JoinColumn(name = "province_id")
private List<ProvinceTranslation> translations;
}
#Entity
#Table(name = "province_translation")
public class ProvinceTranslation {
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
private Long id;
private String name;
private Language language;
#ManyToOne
#JoinColumn(name = "province_id")
private Province province;
}
I want that translations field load only translation with specified language, and country field load translation with specified language too(Country class has a list of CountryTranslation obviously!). I don't want to write queries and I want that spring data jpa load relations with the language that I specify explicitly.
It seems, a little bit of writing JPA query is required in this case.
Because the countryTranslation class is missing I put the focus on the Province class.
The Language class is also unknown, maybe this is an enum one, like this:
public enum Language {UNKNOWN, GERMAN, ENGLISH, SPAIN}
To avoid loading of all translations of the entity you have to select the translation according to the given language while fetching the entities from database. I prefer to do this with utilizing spring repositories (which I hope you already have involved). In the ProvinceRepository declared like this
public interface ProvinceRepository extends CrudRepository<Province, Long> {
...
}
you have to provide the required find- or count methods.
To get a List of all provinces with specific translation you may declare a function like this one, inside the ProvinceRepository:
#Query("SELECT new org.your.package.goes.here.Province(p.id, p.country, pt.name) FROM Province p inner join p.translations pt where pt.language = ?1")
List<Province> findAllWithTranslation(Language language);
To make this working, there must a exist a constuctor that accepts the three parameters id, country, name. The name parameter may be set to a new translation property of the Province class, respectively the created province object. If the Language class is indeed an enum class the #Enumerated annotation must be added to the language field.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that the provision of translation strings should be better done with the help of an internationalization library (i18n).
I use crnk (JSON-API) in java project and I have 3 questions regarding its usage with spring boot and jpa - haven't found exact implementation details in documentation.
For example, I have 2 entities and respective tables:
#Entity
#JsonApiResource(type = "employee")
public class Employee {
#Id
#JsonApiId
private int id;
private String name;
#ManyToOne
#JoinColumn(name = "typeId")
private EmployeeType employeeType; //stored in table as typeId
}
#Entity
#JsonApiResource(type = "type")
public class EmployeeType {
#Id
#JsonApiId
private int id;
private String typeName;
private int salary;
}
How should JsonApiRelation be introduced in order to be able to call "/employee/1" and "/employee/1/type" urls?
For example there is one more entity.
#Entity
#JsonApiResource(type = "project")
public class Project {
#Id
#JsonApiId
private int id;
private String supervisorName;
private String projectName;
}
First, I'd like to have List of Projects for each Employee, where he is a supervisor, joint by name and have it listed as attribute in Json.
Tried implementing it with #OneToMany and #JoinColumn annotations but got StackOverflowException. How could this be implemented. And second, how could this be implemented with Relation? Like "/employee/1/projects" url.
How should I implement custom filtering of results for findAll method? For example, I have a List of all Employees, but I'd like to exclude some of them from the response. Which class/method should be introduced for this behaviour?
#JsonApiRelation annotation should not be necessary. Crnk will detect the #ManyToOne annotation and map it accordingly.
in case of crnk-jpa it is sufficient to specify all relationships in JPA. Matching JSON API relationships. So your approach seems good. What was the StackoverflowException stacktrace? (next to the examples, there are also many example entities in crnk-jpa)
I would make use of a decorator. See http://www.crnk.io/documentation/#_request_filtering. RepositoryDecoratorFactory allows to place a custom repository between the caller and crnk-jpa (or any other kind of repository). There you can do any kind of modification perform (maybe) calling the "real" repository. => Will add an example for this
feel free also make open up tickets in crnk for any documentation/example clarifications.
I have created simple design to ease explanation, here is the UML :
here is the Attachment class code :
#Entity
#Inheritance(strategy = InheritanceType.SINGLE_TABLE)
#DiscriminatorColumn(name = "type", discriminatorType = DiscriminatorType.STRING)
#DiscriminatorValue("Attachment")
#Table(name = "ATTACHMENTS")
public class Attachment {
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
#Column(name="ID")
private long id;
#ManyToOne
#JoinColumn(name = "USER_ID")
private User user;
...
}
and for the BookAttachment class :
#Entity
#DiscriminatorValue("BookAttachment")
public class BookAttachment extends Attachment{
#ManyToOne
#JoinColumn(name="Book_ID")
private Book book;
...
}
My question here, how can I do the bidirectional relation in the Book class ? should it be done like this? ( it's not polymorphism and not sure if it's good design )
public class Book{
#OneToMany(mappedBy = "book", cascade = CascadeType.PERSIST)
private List<BookAttachment> bookAttachments;
...
}
or the following :
I don't know yet how can I use the mappedBy as the attachment class don't have relation to Book.
public class Book{
#oneToMany
private List<Attachment> bookAttachments;
...
}
is not using polymorphism in this example good? Book class shouldn't be related to userAttachment. ( The example is just to provide a clear understanding of how the design will be. it's not a real one, so I need to understand if not using polymorphism, in this case, is good or bad design).
In my opinion there's no a correct way... you can even have both options implemented in your Book class in the same time, the proper one depends on your requirements.
If I have to choose one I would select the second one since it's more general and modular.
But, for sure, in your second solution the name of attribute is wrong! It should be attachments instead of bookAttachments.
I'm trying to write a hibernate adapter for an old database schema. This schema does not have a dedicated id column, but uses about three other columns to join data.
On some tables, I need to use coalesce. This is what I came up with so far:
About the definition:
A car can have elements, assigned by the car's user or by the car's group of users.
If FORIGN_ELEMENT holds a user's name, definition will be 'u'
If FORIGN_ELEMENT holds a group's name, definition will be 'g'
This also means, one table (CAR_TO_ELEMENT) is misused to map cars to elements and cargroups to elements. I defined a superclass CarElement and subclasses CarUserElement and CarGroupElement.
state is either "active" or an uninteresting string
I set definitition and state elsewhere, we do not need to worry about this.
Use DEP_NR on the join table. If it's zero, use USR_DEP_NR. I did this with COALESCE(NULLIF()) successfully in native SQL and want to achieve the same in Hibernate with Pojos.
Okay, here we go with the code:
#Entity
#Table(name="CAR")
public class Car extends TableEntry implements Serializable {
#Id
#Column(name="DEP_NR")
private int depnr;
#Id
#Column(name="USER_NAME")
#Type(type="TrimmedString")
private String username;
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.EAGER, targetEntity=CarGroup.class)
#JoinColumns(value={
#JoinColumn(name="GROUP_NAME"),
#JoinColumn(name="DEP_NR"),
#JoinColumn(name="state"),
})
private CarGroup group;
#OneToMany(fetch=FetchType.EAGER, targetEntity=CarUserElement.class, mappedBy="car")
private Set<CarUserElement> elements;
}
#Entity
#Table(name="CAR_GROUP")
public class CarGroup extends TableEntry implements Serializable {
#Id
#Column(name="DEP_NR")
private int depnr;
#Id
#Column(name="GROUP_NAME")
#Type(type="TrimmedString")
private String group;
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.EAGER, targetEntity=Car.class)
#JoinColumns(value={
#JoinColumn(name="GROUP_NAME"),
#JoinColumn(name="DEP_NR"),
#JoinColumn(name="state"),
})
private Set<Car> cars;
#OneToMany(fetch=FetchType.EAGER, targetEntity=CarGroupElement.class, mappedBy="car")
private Set<CarGroupElement> elements;
}
#MappedSuperclass
public class CarElement extends TableEntry {
#Id
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.EAGER, targetEntity=Element.class)
#JoinColumns(value={
#JoinColumn(name="ELEMENT_NAME"),
#JoinColumn(name="state"),
})
private Element element;
}
#Entity
#Table(name="CAR_TO_ELEMENT")
public class CarUserElement extends CarElement {
#Id
#Column(name="DEFINITION")
private char definition;
#Id
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
#JoinColumnsOrFormulas(value = {
#JoinColumnOrFormula(formula=#JoinFormula(value="COALESCE(NULLIF(DEP_NR, 0), USR_DEP_NR)", referencedColumnName="DEP_NR")),
#JoinColumnOrFormula(column=#JoinColumn(name="FORIGN_ELEMENT", referencedColumnName="USER_NAME")),
#JoinColumnOrFormula(column=#JoinColumn(name="STATE", referencedColumnName="STATE"))
})
private Car car;
}
#Entity
#Table(name="CAR_TO_ELEMENT")
public class CarGroupElement extends CarElement {
#Id
#Column(name="DEFINITION")
private char definition;
#Id
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
#JoinColumnsOrFormulas(value = {
#JoinColumnOrFormula(formula=#JoinFormula(value="COALESCE(NULLIF(DEP_NR, 0), USR_DEP_NR)", referencedColumnName="DEP_NR")),
#JoinColumnOrFormula(column=#JoinColumn(name="FORIGN_ELEMENT", referencedColumnName="GROUP_NAME")),
#JoinColumnOrFormula(column=#JoinColumn(name="STATE", referencedColumnName="STATE"))
})
private Car car;
}
I tried all available versions of hibernate (from 3.5.1 [first version with #JoinColumnsOrFormulas] up to 4.x.x), but I always get this error:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ClassCastException: org.hibernate.mapping.Formula cannot be cast to org.hibernate.mapping.Column
at org.hibernate.cfg.annotations.TableBinder.bindFk(TableBinder.java:351)
at org.hibernate.cfg.annotations.CollectionBinder.bindCollectionSecondPass(CollectionBinder.java:1338)
at org.hibernate.cfg.annotations.CollectionBinder.bindOneToManySecondPass(CollectionBinder.java:791)
at org.hibernate.cfg.annotations.CollectionBinder.bindStarToManySecondPass(CollectionBinder.java:719)
at org.hibernate.cfg.annotations.CollectionBinder$1.secondPass(CollectionBinder.java:668)
at org.hibernate.cfg.CollectionSecondPass.doSecondPass(CollectionSecondPass.java:66)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.originalSecondPassCompile(Configuration.java:1597)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.secondPassCompile(Configuration.java:1355)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1737)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1788)
Other hibernate users seem to have the same problem: They can't get it working with any version, see this thread and other stackoverflow questions:
https://forum.hibernate.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1010559
To be more complete, here's my TrimmedString Class:
https://forum.hibernate.org/viewtopic.php?p=2191674&sid=049b85950db50a8bd145f9dac49a5f6e#p2191674
Thanks in advance!
PS: It works with joining just these three colulmns with just one DEP-NR-Column (i.e. either DEP_NR OR USR_DEP_NR using just #JoinColumns). But I need this coalesce(nullif()).
I ran into a similar problem, and it seems that the issue is that you are using a #Formula inside an #Id. Hibernate wants Ids to be insertable, and Formulas are read-only.
In my case I was able to work around the problem by making the individual columns Id properties on their own, and making the joined object a separate property. I don't know if this would work in your case since you're using two different columns in your formula, but if so your code might look something like:
#Entity
#Table(name="CAR_TO_ELEMENT")
public class CarUserElement extends CarElement {
#Id
#Column(name="DEFINITION")
private char definition;
#Id
#Column(name="DEP_NR")
private Integer depNr;
#Id
#Column(name="USR_DEP_NR")
private Integer usrDepNr;
#Id
#Column(name="FORIGN_ELEMENT")
private String userName;
#Id
#Column(name="STATE")
private String state;
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
#JoinColumnsOrFormulas(value = {
#JoinColumnOrFormula(formula=#JoinFormula(value="COALESCE(NULLIF(DEP_NR, 0), USR_DEP_NR)", referencedColumnName="DEP_NR")),
#JoinColumnOrFormula(column=#JoinColumn(name="FORIGN_ELEMENT", referencedColumnName="USER_NAME", insertable = false, updatable = false)),
#JoinColumnOrFormula(column=#JoinColumn(name="STATE", referencedColumnName="STATE", insertable = false, updatable = false))
})
private Car car;
}
Join formulas are very fragile in Hibernate for the time being; I always had a difficult time to get them work properly.
The workaround that helped me often was to create database views which exposed the proper columns (including foreign keys that don't exist in the original tables). Then I mapped the entities to the views using classing Hibernate/JPA mappings.
Sometimes there are redundant joins in the generated SQL when using such entities, but the database optimizes such queries in most cases so that the execution plan is optimal anyway.
Another approach could be using #Subselects, which are some kind of Hibernate views, but I expect them to be less performant than the classic database views.
I ran into the cast exception as well and I'm on Hibernate 5.x.
Until Hibernate dedicates time to fix the issue, I found that while this guy's approach may not be cleanest (he even eludes to that fact!), it works.
You just need to add the #Column mappings (and get/set methods) to your association table objects that are returning null and manually set the values when you populate the relation data. Simple but effective!