Registering Converters in JPA 2.1 with EclipseLink

Question

On JavaEE environment, I use JPA 2.1 implementation with EclipseLink,

I have some entities that contain enums. So I have created converters for these enume

Answer 1

Wait till they release the patch for your application server.

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=443546

The release schedules pending are listed in http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27004980

The workaround for now is to store it as a String and have a getter and setter that would do the transform for you like this

public final class StaticEnumToStringConverter {

    public static > String convertToDatabaseColumn(final E attribute) {

        if (attribute == null) {
            return null;
        }
        return attribute.toString();
    }

    public static > E convertToEntityAttribute(final String dbData, final Class enumClass) {

        if (dbData == null) {
            return null;
        }
        for (final E c : EnumSet.allOf(enumClass)) {
            if (dbData.equals(c.toString())) {
                return c;
            }
        }
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(dbData);

    }

    private StaticEnumToStringConverter() {

    }
}

Then use in the JPA Entity as:

@NotNull
@Column(nullable = false)
private String genderAtBirth;

public Gender getGenderAtBirth() {
    return StaticEnumToStringConverter.convertToEntityAttribute(genderAtBirth, Gender.class);
}
public void setGenderAtBirth(final Gender genderAtBirth) {

    this.genderAtBirth = StaticEnumToStringConverter.convertToDatabaseColumn(genderAtBirth);
}