Module jakarta.persistence
Package jakarta.persistence

Annotation Interface CollectionTable

@Target({METHOD,FIELD}) @Retention(RUNTIME) public @interface CollectionTable
Specifies the table that is used for the mapping of collections of basic or embeddable types. Applied to the collection-valued field or property.

By default, the columns of the collection table that correspond to the embeddable class or basic type are derived from the attributes of the embeddable class or from the basic type according to the default values of the Column annotation. In the case of a basic type, the column name is derived from the name of the collection-valued field or property. In the case of an embeddable class, the column names are derived from the field or property names of the embeddable class.

  • To override the default properties of the column used for a basic type, the Column annotation is used on the collection-valued attribute in addition to the ElementCollection annotation.
  • To override these defaults for an embeddable class, the AttributeOverride and/or AttributeOverrides annotations can be used in addition to the ElementCollection annotation. If the embeddable class contains references to other entities, the default values for the columns corresponding to those references may be overridden by means of the AssociationOverride and/or AssociationOverrides annotations.

If the CollectionTable annotation is missing, the default values of the CollectionTable annotation elements apply.

Example: 

@Embeddable
public class Address {
    protected String street;
    protected String city;
    protected String state;
    ...
}

@Entity
public class Person {
    @Id
    protected String ssn;
    protected String name;
    protected Address home;
    ...
    @ElementCollection  // use default table (PERSON_NICKNAMES)
    @Column(name = "name", length = 50)
    protected Set<String> nickNames = new HashSet<>();
    ...
}

@Entity
public class WealthyPerson extends Person {
    @ElementCollection
    @CollectionTable(name = "HOMES") // use default join column name
    @AttributeOverrides({
        @AttributeOverride(name = "street",
                           column = @Column(name = "HOME_STREET")),
        @AttributeOverride(name = "city",
                           column = @Column(name = "HOME_CITY")),
        @AttributeOverride(name="state",
                           column = @Column(name = "HOME_STATE"))})
    protected Set<Address> vacationHomes = new HashSet<>();
    ...
}

This annotation may not be applied to a persistent field or property not annotated ElementCollection.

Since:
2.0
See Also:

  • Optional Element Summary

    Optional Elements
    Modifier and Type
    Optional Element
    Description
    String
    catalog
    (Optional) The catalog of the table.
    ForeignKey
    foreignKey
    (Optional) Used to specify or control the generation of a foreign key constraint for the columns corresponding to the joinColumns() element when table generation is in effect.
    Index[]
    indexes
    (Optional) Indexes for the table.
    JoinColumn[]
    joinColumns
    (Optional) The foreign key columns of the collection table which reference the primary table of the entity.
    String
    name
    (Optional) The name of the collection table.
    String
    options
    (Optional) A SQL fragment appended to the generated DDL statement which creates this table.
    String
    schema
    (Optional) The schema of the table.
    UniqueConstraint[]
    uniqueConstraints
    (Optional) Unique constraints that are to be placed on the table.

  • Element Details

    • name

      String name
      (Optional) The name of the collection table. If not specified, it defaults to the concatenation of the name of the containing entity and the name of the collection attribute, separated by an underscore.
      Default:
      ""

    • catalog

      String catalog
      (Optional) The catalog of the table. If not specified, the default catalog is used.
      Default:
      ""

    • schema

      String schema
      (Optional) The schema of the table. If not specified, the default schema for the user is used.
      Default:
      ""

    • joinColumns

      JoinColumn[] joinColumns
      (Optional) The foreign key columns of the collection table which reference the primary table of the entity. The default only applies if a single join column is used. The default is the same as for JoinColumn (i.e., the concatenation of the following: the name of the entity; "_"; the name of the referenced primary key column.) However, if there is more than one join column, a JoinColumn annotation must be specified for each join column using the JoinColumns annotation. In this case, both the name and referencedColumnName elements must be specified by each such JoinColumn annotation.
      Default:
      {}

    • foreignKey

      ForeignKey foreignKey
      (Optional) Used to specify or control the generation of a foreign key constraint for the columns corresponding to the joinColumns() element when table generation is in effect. If both this element and the foreignKey element of any of the joinColumns elements are specified, the behavior is undefined. If no foreign key annotation element is specified in either location, a default foreign key strategy is selected by the persistence provider.
      Since:
      2.1
      Default:
      @jakarta.persistence.ForeignKey(PROVIDER_DEFAULT)

    • uniqueConstraints

      UniqueConstraint[] uniqueConstraints
      (Optional) Unique constraints that are to be placed on the table. These are only used if table generation is in effect.
      Default:
      {}

    • indexes

      Index[] indexes
      (Optional) Indexes for the table. These are only used if table generation is in effect.
      Since:
      2.1
      Default:
      {}

    • options

      String options
      (Optional) A SQL fragment appended to the generated DDL statement which creates this table. This is only used if table generation is in effect.
      Since:
      3.2
      Default:
      ""