jpa em.persist insert previously deleted items

Question

My application j2ee+spring mvc+jpa(eclipselink, database oracle) has a problem when i persist an item after remove another item. If i remove an item or more items, the next persist insert in the db the items previously deleted. In the model i have this mapping for class Profile:

@Entity
@Table(name = "PROFILES")

    Class Profile {
        private Collection<PortfolioItem> portfolio;
        ...
        @OneToMany(orphanRemoval = true,cascade={PERSIST,MERGE,REFRESH,REMOVE})
        @JoinColumn(name = "PROFILE_FK", referencedColumnName = "PROFILE_ID")
            public Collection<PortfolioItem> getPortfolio() {
                return portfolio;
        }
    }

The class PortfolioItem is a simple POJO mapped whit

@Entity @Table(name = "PORTFOLIO_ITEMS")

In the service i have two method createPortfolioItem e deletePortfolioItem

   @Transactional
    @Override
    public void create(PortfolioItem portfolioItem,Profile profile) 
throws BusinessException{

        em.persist(portfolioItem);
        profile.portfolio.add(portfolioItem);
        em.merge(profile);
    }

    @Transactional
    @Override
    public void deletePortfolioItem(int portfolioItemID) throws BusinessException {
        PortfolioItem p = em.find(PortfolioItem.class, portfolioItemID);
        em.remove(em.merge(p));
        em.getEntityManagerFactory().getCache().evictAll();     
    }

If i follow these steps:

1. create elements A and B with createPortfolioItem in the DB there are A and B
2. delete element A with deletePortfolioItem in the DB there is only B
3. create element C with createPortfolioItem in the DB there are A, B and C

Please, help me!

This is PortfolioItem class

@Entity

@Table(name = "PORTFOLIO_ITEMS")
public class PortfolioItem implements Serializable {


    private int portfolioItemID;
    private String title;
    private String description;
    private UploadedFile portfolioFile;
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    public PortfolioItem() {
        super();
    } 

    @Id    
    @Column(name = "PORTFOLIOITEM_ID")
    @GeneratedValue(generator = "PortfolioItem_Gen")
    @SequenceGenerator(name = "PortfolioItem_Gen", sequenceName = "PortfolioItem_Seq", initialValue=1, allocationSize=1)
    public int getPortfolioItemID() {
        return this.portfolioItemID;
    }

    public void setPortfolioItemID(int portfolioItemID) {
        this.portfolioItemID = portfolioItemID;
    }   
    public String getTitle() {
        return this.title;
    }

    public void setTitle(String title) {
        this.title = title;
    }   
    public String getDescription() {
        return this.description;
    }

    public void setDescription(String description) {
        this.description = description;
    }
}

For create an object of PortfolioItem i take data from a spring form like this in a jsp page

<form:form modelAttribute="portfolioItem" action="${pageContext.request.contextPath}/create" method="POST">

            <form:errors path="title"/>
            <form:input path="title" id="title" placeholder="Title"/>

            <form:errors path="description"/>
            <form:input path="description" id="description" placeholder="Description"/>

            <button type="submit" class="standard_button medium">Sumbit</button>            
            </form:form>

In the controller i have this methods:

@RequestMapping("/delete")
    public String deletePortfolioItem(@RequestParam("portfolioItemID") int portfolioItemID) throws BusinessException{

        service.deletePortfolioItem(portfolioItemID);
        return "redirect:/profiles/views?profileID="+profile.getID();
    }

    @RequestMapping(value="/create",method=RequestMethod.GET)
    public String createPortfolioStart(Model model){
        model.addAttribute("portfolioItem", new PortfolioItem());
        return "portfolio.createform";
    }



@RequestMapping(value="/create",method=RequestMethod.POST)
        public String createPortfolio(@ModelAttribute PortfolioItem portfolioItem,
@RequestParam("profileID") int profileID,
BindingResult bindingResult) throws BusinessException{

            portfolioValidator.validate(portfolioItem, bindingResult);
                Profile profile = service.findProfileByID(profileID);   
            service.create(portfolioItem,profile);

            return "redirect:/profiles/views?profileID="+profile.getID();
        }

Answer 1

i don't think the error lies in this code, but maybe you are re-using an old Profile/PortfolioItem stored, maybe, in some @SessionScoped/@ViewScoped bean or equivalent.

another 2 things:

1) since getPortfolio() is marked cascade=PERSIST, you can simply do:

@Transactional
@Override
public void create(PortfolioItem portfolioItem,Profile profile) throws BusinessException
{
    profile.getPortfolio().add(portfolioItem);
    em.merge(profile);
}

2) you don't need to re-merge an entity loaded inside a EJB transactional method:

@Transactional
@Override
public void deletePortfolioItem(int portfolioItemID) throws BusinessException 
{
    PortfolioItem p = em.find(PortfolioItem.class, portfolioItemID);
    em.remove(p);
    em.getEntityManagerFactory().getCache().evictAll();     
}

Answer 2

I think the problem lies in the code when you remove the PortofolioItem. Before removing it with em.remove(portofolioItem) you should remove it from the list of the profile's collection:

TypedQuery<Profile> query = em.createQuery("SELECT profile FROM Profile profile JOIN profile.portfolio portofolio where portofolio.id = :portofolioId", Profile.class);
query.setParameter("portofolioId", portofolioId);
Profile profile = query.getSingleResult();
profile.getprotofolio().remove(portofolio);

Also, instead of playing with the cache.evictAll() you could try to call em.flush().