java 67 lines · 9 steps

Soft deletes with Hibernate in Spring

Two JPA entities intercept deletes to flag rows instead of removing them, and hide the flagged rows from every query.

Explained by highlit

Spring Intermediate soft-delete jpa hibernate entity-mapping cascade

1@Entity
2@Table(name = "orders")
3@SQLDelete(sql = "UPDATE orders SET deleted = true, deleted_at = now() WHERE id = ?")
4@Where(clause = "deleted = false")
5@Getter
6@Setter
7public class Order {
8 
9    @Id
10    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
11    private Long id;
12 
13    @Column(nullable = false)
14    private String reference;
15 
16    @Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
17    @Column(nullable = false)
18    private OrderStatus status;
19 
20    @Column(nullable = false)
21    private boolean deleted = false;
22 
23    @Column(name = "deleted_at")
24    private Instant deletedAt;
25 
26    @OneToMany(
27        mappedBy = "order",
28        cascade = CascadeType.ALL,
29        orphanRemoval = true,
30        fetch = FetchType.LAZY
31    )
32    private List<OrderLine> lines = new ArrayList<>();
33 
34    public void addLine(OrderLine line) {
35        line.setOrder(this);
36        this.lines.add(line);
37    }
38}
39 
40@Entity
41@Table(name = "order_lines")
42@SQLDelete(sql = "UPDATE order_lines SET deleted = true, deleted_at = now() WHERE id = ?")
43@Where(clause = "deleted = false")
44@Getter
45@Setter
46public class OrderLine {
47 
48    @Id
49    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
50    private Long id;
51 
52    @ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY, optional = false)
53    @JoinColumn(name = "order_id", nullable = false)
54    private Order order;
55 
56    @Column(nullable = false)
57    private String sku;
58 
59    @Column(nullable = false)
60    private int quantity;
61 
62    @Column(nullable = false)
63    private boolean deleted = false;
64 
65    @Column(name = "deleted_at")
66    private Instant deletedAt;
67}

01 / 01

STEP 01

Walkthrough

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Three takeaways

1@SQLDelete and @Where together turn physical deletes into reversible flag updates that stay invisible to queries.
2Owning both sides of a bidirectional relationship in a helper method keeps parent and child references consistent.
3Soft-delete flags must live on every entity in a cascade so children aren't hard-deleted out from under a soft-deleted parent.

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