> I think I now understand your point, which I missed earlier. You > don't see a need for a primary key to be defined on a join table. > Apparently, JPOX requires this, and there is nothing in the spec > currently that addresses the issue at all. Unless we change the spec > to disallow the JPOX implementation, it seems that it is de facto a > portability issue.
Hi Craig, I mentioned this in one of the original JIRA issues on this subject. Either we define a <primary-key> (to fully-specify the columns to be used, as you say in your proposed wording) or we have a way of defining that no PK is to be defined for that join table. I've no problem with allowing both, which is what Abe is asking for. JPOX can implement both, but the spec doesn't define how to say that you have no PK, so consequently how can we ? We could interpret no <primary-key> element as saying no PK, but I'm of the opinion that having a PK in a join table is a "best practice" and should be the default behaviour. Consequently I want a different way to say that there is no PK. Maybe something like <join primary-key="false"> -- Andy Java Persistent Objects - JPOX
