Erroneous POST and PATCH handling of associations with Spring Data Rest - spring

Question

Spring Data Rest is showing a real puzzling behavior when updating an embedded association. In my example there is an entity Customer which has a _OneTo_Many_ relation to an entity Phones. The Phones are correctly shown as embedded array by a GET to the customers/50 entity-resource. But neither the PUT nor the PATCH show the expected results.
public class Customer {
public static final String TABLE_NAME = "CUSTOMER";
public static final String SEQUENCE_NAME = "S_CUSTOMER";
public static final String DISPLAY_NAME_COLUMN = "DISPLAY_NAME";
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.SEQUENCE,
generator = "s_customer")
#SequenceGenerator(name = "s_customer", sequenceName = "S_CUSTOMER",
allocationSize = 50)
private Long id;
#NotEmpty
#Column(name = "DISPLAY_NAME")
private String displayName;
#OneToMany(mappedBy = "owner")
private List<Phone> phones;
#Version
private Long version;
}
public class Phone {
public static final String TABLE_NAME = "PHONE";
public static final String SEQUENCE_NAME = "S_PHONE";
public static final String OWNER_COLUMN = "OWNER";
public static final String PHONE_TYPE_COLUMN = "PHONE_TYPE";
public static final String NUMBER_COLUMN = "NUMBER";
enum PhoneType {
MOBILE, HOME, OFFICE
}
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.SEQUENCE, generator = "s_phone_number")
#SequenceGenerator(name = "s_phone_number", sequenceName = SEQUENCE_NAME, allocationSize = 50)
private Long id;
#ManyToOne
#JoinColumn(name = OWNER_COLUMN)
private Customer owner;
#Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
#Column(name = PHONE_TYPE_COLUMN)
private PhoneType phoneType;
#NotEmpty
#Column(name = NUMBER_COLUMN)
private String number;
#Version
private Long version;
}
A POST to the entity /customer/50 produces a correct Update to the Customer, but the Insert to the Phone does not contain the foreign key to the customer:
[EL Fine]: sql: 2016-06-23
11:41:25.149--ClientSession(1317378011)--Connection(497905718)--Thread(Thread[http-nio-8081-exec-1,5,main])--UPDATE
CUSTOMER SET DISPLAY_NAME = ?, VERSION = ? WHERE ((ID = ?) AND
(VERSION = ?)) bind => [bla, 1, 50, 0] [EL Fine]: sql: 2016-06-23
11:41:25.15--ClientSession(1317378011)--Connection(497905718)--Thread(Thread[http-nio-8081-exec-1,5,main])--INSERT
INTO PHONE (ID, NUMBER, PHONE_TYPE, VERSION, OWNER) VALUES (?, ?, ?,
?, ?) bind => [1, 12345, MOBILE, 1, null]
This is the body of the PUT request:
{
"displayName": "bla",
"phones": [
{
"number": "12345",
"phoneType": "MOBILE"
}
]
}
So, Spring Data Rest correctly interprets the PUT as an update of the Customer and an insert into the Phone table, but just "forgets" about the relation. I assume this is a bug. Or is there something I forgot?
Btw: The PATCH behaves similar. There is again not foreign key in the phone record.
Edit:
The code of the CustomerRepository:
#Repository
public interface CustomerDao extends PagingAndSortingRepository<Customer, Long> {
List<Customer> findByDisplayName(#Param("name") String name);
}