NULL maps from merged entities

[Pawel Veselov]

Hi.

Typically, when an entity has a relationship expressed as @OneToMany or
@ManyToMany in a form of a collection, or a map, the collection or a map
will be empty (not null), if there are no referenced objects (I believe
JPA2.0 explicitly states that). So far, I haven't been having any problems
with this, but I did find that the map will be null on a newly merged
entity:

        ETest test = em.find(ETest.class, req.getParameter(P_ID));
        ETest newTest = new ETest();
        newTest = em.merge(newTest);
        newTest.getUsedAgents().putAll(test.getUsedAgents());
        newTest = em.merge(newTest);
        newTest.getUsedAgents().putAll(test.getUsedAgents()); // NPE

the getUsedAgents() returns null. The entity code (abridged) is:

public class ETest {
    @ManyToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
    private Map<String, EAgent> usedAgents;
    public Map<String, EAgent> getUsedAgents() {
        return usedAgents;
    }
}

I believe that would be a bug.

This is OpenJPA 2.1.1, entities enhanced with PCEnhancer, no funny stuff in
p.xml, just the entity list.

Thank you,
  Pawel.