How to Access EntityManager with Spring Data
Last updated: October 27, 2023
1. Overview
We usually don’t need to access the EntityManager directly when working on a Spring Data application. However, sometimes we may want to access it, like to create custom queries or to detach entities.
In this quick tutorial, we’ll learn how to access the EntityManager by extending a Spring Data Repository.
2. Access EntityManager With Spring Data
We can get the EntityManager by creating a custom repository that extends, for instance, a built-in JpaRepository.
First, we’ll define an example Entity for the users we want to store in a database:
@Entity
public class User {
@Id
@GeneratedValue
private Long id;
private String name;
private String email;
// ...
}We don’t have direct access to the EntityManager in a JpaRepository, and therefore we need to create our own.
Let’s create one with a custom find method:
public interface CustomUserRepository {
User customFindMethod(Long id);
}Using @PeristenceContext, we can inject the EntityManager in the implementation class:
public class CustomUserRepositoryImpl implements CustomUserRepository {
@PersistenceContext
private EntityManager entityManager;
@Override
public User customFindMethod(Long id) {
return (User) entityManager.createQuery("FROM User u WHERE u.id = :id")
.setParameter("id", id)
.getSingleResult();
}
}Likewise, we can use the @PersistenceUnit annotation, in which case we’ll access the EntityManagerFactory, and from it, the EntityManager.
Finally, we’ll create a Repository that extends both the JpaRepository and CustomRepository:
@Repository
public interface UserRepository extends JpaRepository<User, Long>, CustomUserRepository {
}In addition, we can make a Spring Boot application, and test to check that everything is tied up and working as expected:
@SpringBootTest(classes = CustomRepositoryApplication.class)
class CustomRepositoryUnitTest {
@Autowired
private UserRepository userRepository;
@Test
public void givenCustomRepository_whenInvokeCustomFindMethod_thenEntityIsFound() {
User user = new User();
user.setEmail("[email protected]");
user.setName("userName");
User persistedUser = userRepository.save(user);
assertEquals(persistedUser, userRepository.customFindMethod(user.getId()));
}
}3. Conclusion
In this article, we looked at a quick example of accessing the EntityManager in a Spring Data application. We can access the EntityManager in a custom repository, and still use our Spring Data Repository by extending its functionality.
As always, the code for these examples is available over on GitHub.
