How to convert a Hibernate proxy to a real entity object

Question

During a Hibernate Session, I am loading some objects and some of them are loaded as proxies due to lazy loading. It\'s all OK and I don\'t want to turn lazy lo

Answer 1

I found a solution to deproxy a class using standard Java and JPA API. Tested with hibernate, but does not require hibernate as a dependency and should work with all JPA providers.

Onle one requirement - its necessary to modify parent class (Address) and add a simple helper method.

General idea: add helper method to parent class which returns itself. when method called on proxy, it will forward the call to real instance and return this real instance.

Implementation is a little bit more complex, as hibernate recognizes that proxied class returns itself and still returns proxy instead of real instance. Workaround is to wrap returned instance into a simple wrapper class, which has different class type than the real instance.

In code:

class Address {
   public AddressWrapper getWrappedSelf() {
       return new AddressWrapper(this);
   }
...
}

class AddressWrapper {
    private Address wrappedAddress;
...
}

To cast Address proxy to real subclass, use following:

Address address = dao.getSomeAddress(...);
Address deproxiedAddress = address.getWrappedSelf().getWrappedAddress();
if (deproxiedAddress instanceof WorkAddress) {
WorkAddress workAddress = (WorkAddress)deproxiedAddress;
}