Post JSON with #ManyToOne Relationship in Spring Boot - json

Question

I have written a test application in spring boot. Employees have a relation to a department. CRUD works, but I'm not sure I'm doing it the correct way.
When I will create a new employee I have to send the following post request
"id": 3,
"firstname": "John",
"lastname": "Doe",
"salary": 50000,
"department": {
"id": 2,
"name": "Sales"
}
}
This is the employee class:
#Entity
public class Employee {
#Id
#GeneratedValue
private Long id;
private String firstname;
private String lastname;
#ManyToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
#JoinColumn(name = "department_id", referencedColumnName="id")
private Department department;
private int salary;
This is the create method in the EmployeeController:
#PostMapping("/employees")
public Employee create(#RequestBody Employee employee) {
return employeeService.add(employee);
}
The department entries already exists.
Is it possible to create an employee without filling the complete relation
(department)?
I would like to add the department id only. But if I do this, the name field in the json data is empty (get request)
id 3
firstname "John"
lastname "Doe"
department
id 2
name null
salary 50000
Is there any better approach?

Answer 1

You are taking an Entity as a request body which is not the correct approach. You can take Some VO as Request Object and then convert to Entity inside a service.
For E.g
EmployeeVO{
private String firstname;
private String lastname;
List<Integer> departments;
}
Also, you can use Jackson annotations like
#JsonIgnoreProperties(ignoreUnknown = true)
#JsonInclude(JsonInclude.Include.NON_NULL) to ignore unknown attributes and include not null attributes.