Hello!
I am having a bit of trouble deciphering the JPA spec's stance on case sensitivity, specifically with regards to database Table/Column names. I cannot find anything in the JPA specification that dictates if Table/Column names should/shouldn't default to UPPERCASE or lowercase. It appears to me that this may be provider (and more specifically database) specific. Is this a correct assumption?
The reason I ask is because I have been investigating EclipseLink's handling of DatabaseField and the case sensitivity built into that implementation (specifically equals() and hashcode()). In my investigation, I found that EclipseLink makes many assumptions about the case sensitivity of database field names. In many situations, EclipseLink basically equates the attribute value <--> database name! As a part of my fix, unfortunately, I started breaking these usecases and I am now hitting a wall because the specification is oddly silent.
For instance, assume these mappings:
-------------------------
@Entity
public class Employee {
@EmbeddedId EmployeeId empId;
}
@Embeddable
public class EmployeeId {
String firstName;
String lastName;
}
@Entity
@IdClass(DependentId.class)
public class Dependent {
@Id
@Column(name="dep_name") // default column name is overridden
String name;
@MapsId("empPK")
@JoinColumns({
@JoinColumn(name="FK1", referencedColumnName="firstName"),
@JoinColumn(name="FK2", referencedColumnName="lastName")
})
@ManyToOne Employee emp;
}
@Embeddable
public class DependentId {
String name;
EmployeeId empPK; // corresponds to PK type of Employee
}
--------------------------------
This mapping example is taken right out of the JPA spec. The portion I am questioning is the `referencedColumnName`. Notice that in this example, the mapping uses the lowercase, attribute names. There are other examples of
`referencedColumnName` in the specification that use UPPERCASE (but the specification fails to show the mappings that the UPPERCASE are referencing).
Consider in the above usecase if the
`referencedColumnName`were given as UPPERCASE. Should we assume the reference ignores case and just figure it out? or should we fail with an error like:
```
missing FK reference column "FIRSTNAME" in table "Employee"
```
Should our implementation ignore case by default? There currently exists a Platforms to change that default (......shouldIgnoreCaseOnFieldComparisons) and that default is false. I think that default may be fine, but it depends on how we want to handle when users pass in specific cased strings and how we handle them.
Thanks,
Will Dazey
