7.5. Bidirectional associations with join tables

7.5.1. one to many / many to one

A bidirectional one-to-many association on a join table. Note that the inverse="true" can go on either end of the association, on the collection, or on the join.

<class name="Person">
    <id name="id" column="personId">
        <generator class="native"/>
    </id>
    <set name="addresses" 
        table="PersonAddress">
        <key column="personId"/>
        <many-to-many column="addressId"
            unique="true"
            class="Address"/>
    </set>
</class>

<class name="Address">
    <id name="id" column="addressId">
        <generator class="native"/>
    </id>
    <join table="PersonAddress" 
        inverse="true" 
        optional="true">
        <key column="addressId"/>
        <many-to-one name="person"
            column="personId"
            not-null="true"/>
    </join>
</class>
create table Person ( personId bigint not null primary key )
create table PersonAddress ( personId bigint not null, addressId bigint not null primary key )
create table Address ( addressId bigint not null primary key )
        

7.5.2. one to one

A bidirectional one-to-one association on a join table is extremely unusual, but possible.

<class name="Person">
    <id name="id" column="personId">
        <generator class="native"/>
    </id>
    <join table="PersonAddress" 
        optional="true">
        <key column="personId" 
            unique="true"/>
        <many-to-one name="address"
            column="addressId" 
            not-null="true"
            unique="true"/>
    </join>
</class>

<class name="Address">
    <id name="id" column="addressId">
        <generator class="native"/>
    </id>
    <join table="PersonAddress" 
        optional="true"
        inverse="true">
        <key column="addressId" 
            unique="true"/>
        <many-to-one name="person"
            column="personId" 
            not-null="true"
            unique="true"/>
    </join>
</class>
create table Person ( personId bigint not null primary key )
create table PersonAddress ( personId bigint not null primary key, addressId bigint not null unique )
create table Address ( addressId bigint not null primary key )
        

7.5.3. many to many

Finally, we have a bidirectional many-to-many association.

<class name="Person">
    <id name="id" column="personId">
        <generator class="native"/>
    </id>
    <set name="addresses" table="PersonAddress">
        <key column="personId"/>
        <many-to-many column="addressId"
            class="Address"/>
    </set>
</class>

<class name="Address">
    <id name="id" column="addressId">
        <generator class="native"/>
    </id>
    <set name="people" inverse="true" table="PersonAddress">
        <key column="addressId"/>
        <many-to-many column="personId"
            class="Person"/>
    </set>
</class>
create table Person ( personId bigint not null primary key )
create table PersonAddress ( personId bigint not null, addressId bigint not null, primary key (personId, addressId) )
create table Address ( addressId bigint not null primary key )