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.

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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. 1@SQLDelete and @Where together turn physical deletes into reversible flag updates that stay invisible to queries.
  2. 2Owning both sides of a bidirectional relationship in a helper method keeps parent and child references consistent.
  3. 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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