How to override #CreatedBY value from AbstractAuditingEntity in Spring JPA - spring

Question

We have a microweb service environment in which AbstractAuditingEntity coming from another common micro service. And I want to override #CreatedBy property of this abstract class with my own defined value.
My code is given below.
#MappedSuperclass
#EntityListeners(AuditingEntityListener.class)
public abstract class AbstractAuditingEntity {
#Column(name = "created_by", insertable = true, updatable = false, nullable = false)
#CreatedBy
private String createdBy;
#Column(name = "created_date", insertable = true, updatable = false, nullable = false)
#Type(type = "org.jadira.usertype.dateandtime.joda.PersistentDateTime")
#CreatedDate
private DateTime createdDate;
#Column(name = "last_modified_by", nullable = false)
#LastModifiedBy
private String lastModifiedBy;
#Type(type = "org.jadira.usertype.dateandtime.joda.PersistentDateTime")
#LastModifiedDate
private DateTime lastModifiedDate;
// #Transient
public abstract Long getInternalId();
// #Transient
public abstract void setInternalId(Long internalId);
public DateTime getCreatedDate() {
return createdDate;
}
public void setCreatedDate(DateTime createdDate) {
this.createdDate = createdDate;
}
public DateTime getLastModifiedDate() {
return lastModifiedDate;
}
public void setLastModifiedDate(DateTime lastModifiedDate) {
this.lastModifiedDate = lastModifiedDate;
}
public String getCreatedBy() {
return createdBy;
}
public void setCreatedBy(String createdBy) {
this.createdBy = createdBy;
}
public String getLastModifiedBy() {
return lastModifiedBy;
}
public void setLastModifiedBy(String lastModifiedBy) {
this.lastModifiedBy = lastModifiedBy;
}
}
And my Domain class is like
#Entity
#Table(name = "programs")
#AttributeOverride(name = "createdBy", column = #Column(name = "created_by"))
public class Program extends AbstractAuditingEntity {
#Id
#SequenceGenerator(name = "programs_seq", sequenceName = "programs_seq")
#GeneratedValue(generator = "programs_seq")
#Column(name = "internal_id", nullable = false)
private Long internalId;
private String programName;
#Override
public String toString() {
return ToStringBuilder.reflectionToString(this, ToStringStyle.MULTI_LINE_STYLE);
}
//Start getters & setters - auto generated by IDE
#Override
public Long getInternalId() {
return internalId;
}
#Override
public void setInternalId(Long internalId) {
this.internalId = internalId;
}
public String getProgramName() {
return programName;
}
public void setProgramName(String programName) {
this.programName = programName;
}
}
When we try to persist this domain object in the database, user defined value provided by me is not getting persist, instead Spring framework still adding its own value. I have tried #AttributeOverride but it doesn't work in my case.
Thanks in advance for help.

Answer 1

I got a solution as below.
#PrePersist
private void setCreateByNew() {
setCreatedBy("anonymousUser");
}
Using #PrePersist I am able to override value which I am getting from common framework.

Answer 2

An alternate solution is to set the securityContext
SecurityContextHolder.getContext().setAuthentication(___{AuthToken}___)
with the username/principal you are using to auto populate audit fields before entity save and reset it after that. (for message or event processing in asynchronous fashion). This populates both #Createdby and #LastUpdatedBy from the JPA AuditAware listener.
#PrePersist will only work if we are trying to hardcode a pre-defined String setCreatedBy("anonymousUser"); as indicated above. It does not allow us to pass in the username/name of the user as parameter to the method.

Answer 3

for : user defined value provided by me is not getting persist, instead Spring framework still adding its own value
you can do it with AuditorAware interface. 3.1.3 AuditorAware
In case you use either #CreatedBy or #LastModifiedBy, the auditing
infrastructure somehow needs to become aware of the current principal.
To do so, we provide an AuditorAware SPI interface that you have to
implement to tell the infrastructure who the current user or system
interacting with the application is. The generic type T defines of
what type the properties annotated with #CreatedBy or #LastModifiedBy
have to be.
Here’s an example implementation of the interface using Spring
Security’s Authentication object:
Example 3.2. Implementation of AuditorAware based on Spring Security
class SpringSecurityAuditorAware implements AuditorAware<User> {
public User getCurrentAuditor() {
Authentication authentication = SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication();
if (authentication == null || !authentication.isAuthenticated()) {
return null;
}
return ((MyUserDetails) authentication.getPrincipal()).getUser();
}
}