How to handle JPA annotations for a pointer to a generic interface

Question

I have a generic class that is also a mapped super class that has a private field that holds a pointer to another object of the same type:

@MappedSuperclass
         


        

Answer 1

Since JDO supports persistence of interface fields (which is a similar concept to what you have here), and since DataNucleus JPA is built on top of the JDO capabilities, then it likely would allow you to persist such a field (I have an example using JDO that does something very similar, but without seeing the remains of your classes and persistence code its impossible to be definitive). Give it a try and see what happens.

Obviously that is beyond the JPA spec, hence if portability is a concern for you then have a think first