Hibernate Search and Spring Boot: Building Bridges

March 10, 2017 (Last Modified: March 15, 2020)

Hibernate Search is a very convenient way for storing database content in a Lucine index and add fulltext search capabilities to data driven projects simply by annotating classes. It can be easily integrated into Spring Boot applications and as long as only the basic features are used, it works out of the box. The fun starts when the Autoconfiguration cannot find out how to properly configure things automatically, then it gets tricky quite quickly. Of course this is natural behaviour, but one gets spoiled quite quickly.

Using the latest Features: Hibernate ORM, Hibernate Search and Spring Boot

The current version of Spring Boot is 1.5.2. This version uses Hibernate ORM 5.0. The latest stable Hibernate Search versions are 5.6.1.Final and 5.7.0.Final, which in in contrast require Hibernate ORM 5.1 and 5.2 respectively. Also you need Java 8 now. For this reason if you need the latest Spring Search features in combination with Spring Boot, you need to adapt the dependencies as follows:

buildscript {
	ext {
		springBootVersion = '1.5.1.RELEASE'
	}
	repositories {
		mavenCentral()
	}
	dependencies {
		classpath("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:${springBootVersion}")
	}
}

apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'eclipse'
apply plugin: 'org.springframework.boot'

jar {
	baseName = 'SearchaRoo'
	version = '0.0.1-SNAPSHOT'
}

sourceCompatibility = 1.8
targetCompatibility = 1.8

repositories {
	mavenCentral()
}


dependencies {
	compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa')
	compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web')
	testCompile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test')
	compile("mysql:mysql-connector-java")
	compile('org.apache.commons:commons-lang3:3.5')
	compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test')
	compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-logging')
	compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-freemarker')

	// Hibernate Search
    compile("org.hibernate:hibernate-core:5.2.8.Final")
    compile("org.hibernate:hibernate-search-orm:5.7.0.Final")    
            configurations.all 
    {
    	exclude group: "org.hibernate:", module: "hibernate-entitymanager"
	}
}```


Note that the Hibernate Entity Manager needs to be excluded, because it has been integrated into the core in the new Hibernate version. Details are given in the [Spring Boot documentation][1].

## Enforcing the Dependencies to be Loaded in the Correct Sequence

As written earlier, Spring Boot takes care of a lot of configurations for us. Most of the time, this works perfectly and reduces the pain for configuring a new application manually. In some particular cases, Spring cannot figure out that there exists a dependency between different services, which needs to be resolved in a specified order. A typical use case is the implementation of FieldBridges for Hibernate Search. FieldBrides translate between the actual Object from the Java World and the representation of such an object in the Lucene index. Typically an [EnumBridge][2]is used for indexing Enums, which are often used for realizing internationalization (I18n).

When the Lucene Index is created, Hibernate checks if Enum fields need to be indexed and if there exist Bridge that converts between the object and the actual record in the Index. The problem here is that Hibernate JPA is loaded at a very early stage in the Spring Boot startup proces. The problem only arises if the BridgeClass utilises @Autowired&nbsp;fields which get injected. Typically, these fields would get injected when the&nbsp;AnnotationBeanConfigurerAspect bean is loaded.&nbsp;Hibernate creates the session with the session factory auto configuration before the&nbsp;spring configurer aspect bean was loaded. So the FieldBridge used by Hibernate during the initialization of the index does not have the service injected yet, causing a nasty Null Pointer Exception.&nbsp;

### Example EnumBridge

The following EnumBridge example utilises an injected Service, which needs to be available before Hibernate starts. If not taken care of, this causes a Null Pointer Exception.

@Configurable public class HibernateSearchEnumBridgeExample extends EnumBridge { private I18nMessageService i18nMessageService;

@Autowired
@Required
public void setI18nMessageService(I18nMessageService service) {
this.i18nMessageService = service;
}

@Override
public String objectToString(Object object)
{
     return  i18nMessageService.getMessageForEnum(object);
}


@Override
public Enum<? extends Enum> stringToObject(String name)
{
    return Enum.valueOf(name);

}

@Override
public void setAppliedOnType(Class<?> returnType)
{
    super.setAppliedOnType(returnType);
}

}```

Enforce Loading the Aspect Configurer Before the Session Factory

In order to enforce that theAnnotationBeanConfigurerAspect is created before the Hibernate Session Factory is created, we simply implement our own HibernateJpaAutoConfiguration by extension and add the AnnotationBeanConfigurerAspect to the constructor. Spring Boot now knows that it needs to instantiate the AnnotationBeanConfigurerAspect before it can instantiate the HibernateJpaAutoConfiguration and we then have wired Beans ready for the consumption of the bridge. I found the correct hint [here][3] and [here][4].

@Configuration
public class HibernateSearchConfig extends HibernateJpaAutoConfiguration {

	public HibernateSearchConfig(DataSource dataSource, JpaProperties jpaProperties,
				AnnotationBeanConfigurerAspect beanConfigurerAspect,
				ObjectProvider<JtaTransactionManager> jtaTransactionManager,
				ObjectProvider<TransactionManagerCustomizers> transactionManagerCustomizers) {

			super(dataSource, jpaProperties, jtaTransactionManager, transactionManagerCustomizers);
	}
}```


As it has turned out, using @DependsOn annotations did not work and also @Ordering the precedence of the Beans was not suffucient. With this little hack, we can ensure the correct sequence of initialization.

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 [1]: http://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/1.5.2.RELEASE/reference/htmlsingle/
 [2]: https://docs.jboss.org/hibernate/search/5.7/api/
 [3]: http://blog.piotrturski.net/2014/05/spring-boot-dependson-is-not-enough.html
 [4]: https://hibernate.atlassian.net/browse/HSEARCH-1316