I have three entity classes: 1. Theatre, 2. Screen, and 3. SeatCategory. The Theatre class has a one-to-many bidirectional mapping with the Screen class, and the Screen class has a one-to-many bidirectional mapping with the SeatCategory class.

When I try to create a Theatre, I am using a DTO that contains information for all three classes. First, I create a Theatre instance, and then I create a list of Screens and SeatCategories respectively.

The problem arises when I try to set the Theatre in the Screen entity object or the Screen in the SeatCategory entity object; I get a stack overflow error. As a result, I do not set these, causing the Theatre ID column in the Screen table to be null in the database.

Please help me solve this issue. Here is a simplified version of my code:

Theatre entity

@Entity
@Table(name = "theatres")
public class Theatre {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.UUID)
    private String theatreId;
    private String name;
    @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, fetch = FetchType.EAGER,mappedBy = "theatre")
    Set<Screen> screens = new HashSet<>();
    @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, fetch = FetchType.EAGER,mappedBy = "theatre")
    Set<Show> shows = new HashSet<>();
    @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, fetch = FetchType.EAGER,mappedBy = "theatre")
    Set<Movie> movies = new HashSet<>();
    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name = "location_id")
    Location location;
    @JsonIgnore
    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name="user_id")
    User user;

}

Screeen Entity

@Entity
@Table(name = "screens")
public class Screen {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.UUID)
    private String screenId;
    private String name;
    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name = "theatre_id")
    Theatre theatre;
    @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, fetch = FetchType.EAGER,mappedBy = "screen")
    Set<SeatCategory> seatCategories = new HashSet<>();
    @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, fetch = FetchType.LAZY,mappedBy = "screen")
    Set<Seat> seats = new HashSet<>();
}

SeatCategory

@Entity
@Table(name = "seat_category")
public class SeatCategory {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.UUID)
    private String seatCategoryId;
    private String name;
    private int capacity;
    private int price;
    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name = "screen_id")
    Screen screen;

}

Service Method

public ResponseEntity<Theatre> createTheatre(CreateTheatreDTO createTheatreDTO,String userName){
        Optional<User> user = userRepository.findByUserName(userName);
        User userObj=null;
        if(user.isPresent()){
            userObj=user.get();
        }else {
            throw new UsernameNotFoundException("User not found");
        }
        Theatre theatre = Theatre.builder()
                .name(createTheatreDTO.getName())
                .build();
        Set<Screen> screens = createTheatreDTO.getScreens().stream()
                .map(screenDTO -> {
                    Screen screen = new Screen();
                    screen.setName(screenDTO.getName());
                    //screen.setTheatre(theatre);
                    Set<SeatCategory> seatCategories = screenDTO.getSeatCategories().stream()
                                    .map(seatCategoryDTO -> {
                                        SeatCategory seatCategory = new SeatCategory();
                                        seatCategory.setName(seatCategoryDTO.getName());
                                        seatCategory.setCapacity(seatCategoryDTO.getCapacity());
                                        seatCategory.setPrice(seatCategoryDTO.getPrice());
                                        //seatCategory.setScreen(screen);
                                        return seatCategory;
                                    }).collect(Collectors.toSet());
                    screen.setSeatCategories(seatCategories);
                    return  screen;
                }).collect(Collectors.toSet());

        theatre.setScreens(screens);
        theatre.setUser(userObj);
        theatreRepository.save(theatre);
        return ResponseEntity.ok().body(theatre);
    }

In the above code, if I do not comment out screen.setTheatre(theatre) or seatCategory.setScreen(screen), I get a StackOverflowError.

java.lang.StackOverflowError: null

Otherwise, I get the following response for the below request

Request

{
    "name": "Test Theatre1234",
    "screens": [
        {
            "name": "Screen 1",
            "seatCategories": [
                {
                    "name": "VIP",
                    "capacity": 50,
                    "price": 100
                },
                {
                    "name": "Standard",
                    "capacity": 100,
                    "price": 50
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "name": "Screen 2",
            "seatCategories": [
                {
                    "name": "Premium",
                    "capacity": 60,
                    "price": 80
                },
                {
                    "name": "Regular",
                    "capacity": 120,
                    "price": 40
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Response

{
    "theatreId": "18f20c7a-4126-4d54-bb2e-fcecd0eeca2f",
    "name": "Test Theatre1234",
    "screens": [
        {
            "screenId": "0df03616-63a0-4ca1-ba73-d456b9056c24",
            "name": "Screen 1",
            "theatre": null,
            "seatCategories": [
                {
                    "seatCategoryId": "13d5f037-11a2-4b88-8b3a-63e455c5761c",
                    "name": "Standard",
                    "capacity": 100,
                    "price": 50,
                    "screen": null
                },
                {
                    "seatCategoryId": "766ce71b-7652-49c4-80b0-02c25030f4af",
                    "name": "VIP",
                    "capacity": 50,
                    "price": 100,
                    "screen": null
                }
            ],
            "seats": []
        },
        {
            "screenId": "a3effae5-ae05-4666-8394-1e014a87b60f",
            "name": "Screen 2",
            "theatre": null,
            "seatCategories": [
                {
                    "seatCategoryId": "afbec81a-207e-4460-84ca-6b52be8ece61",
                    "name": "Premium",
                    "capacity": 60,
                    "price": 80,
                    "screen": null
                },
                {
                    "seatCategoryId": "9d61bd81-1584-4687-ba0c-2e26ac59ab05",
                    "name": "Regular",
                    "capacity": 120,
                    "price": 40,
                    "screen": null
                }
            ],
            "seats": []
        }
    ],
    "shows": null,
    "movies": null,
    "location": null
}

The theatre and screen fields are null, which is preventing me from achieving the bidirectional relationship that I am trying to establish.
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