@BatchSize but many round trips when fetching a @ManyToOne association

Question

I use pagination with hibernate spring-data-jpa and querydsl and i use @BatchSize(size=10) to make just one round-trip to the database.

@Entity
@Table(name = "appel_offre", catalog = "ao")
public class AppelOffre implements java.io.Serializable {

    ....
    @OneToMany(fetch = FetchType.LAZY, mappedBy = "appelOffre")
    @BatchSize(size=10)
    public Set<AoActivite> getAoActivites() {
        return this.aoActivites;
    }

and :

@Entity
@Table(name = "ao_activite", catalog = "ao")
public class AoActivite implements java.io.Serializable {
    .....
    @ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
    @JoinColumn(name = "ID_ACTIVITE", nullable = false)
    @BatchSize(size=10)
    public Activite getActivite() {
        return this.activite;
    }

my query

JPAQuery query = new JPAQuery(entityManager).from(ao) 

    .leftJoin( ao.acheteur, ach ).fetch()

    .leftJoin( ao.aoActivites , ao_ac )
    .leftJoin( ao_ac.activite , ac )
    .offset(...).limit(...).list(..);

but in the log got many round trip to the database:

1 - round-trip

.....
Hibernate: select ... from ao.ao_activite aoactivite0_ where aoactivite0_.ID_APPEL_OFFRE in (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)
Hibernate: select ... from ao.activite activite0_ where activite0_.ID_ACTIVITE=?
Hibernate: select ... from ao.activite activite0_ where activite0_.ID_ACTIVITE=?

2 - round-trip

.....
Hibernate: select ... from ao.activite activite0_ where activite0_.ID_ACTIVITE=?
Hibernate: select ... from ao.activite activite0_ where activite0_.ID_ACTIVITE=?
Hibernate: select ... from ao.activite activite0_ where activite0_.ID_ACTIVITE=?

3 - round-trip

.....
Hibernate: select ... from ao.activite activite0_ where activite0_.ID_ACTIVITE=?
Hibernate: select ... from ao.activite activite0_ where activite0_.ID_ACTIVITE=?

4 - round-trip

.....
Hibernate: select ... from ao.activite activite0_ where activite0_.ID_ACTIVITE=?

5 - round-trip

.....

6 - round-trip

.....
Hibernate: select ... from ao.activite activite0_ where activite0_.ID_ACTIVITE=?

7 - round-trip

......

8 - round-trip

.....
Hibernate: select ... from ao.activite activite0_ where activite0_.ID_ACTIVITE=?

9 - round-trip

.....

10 - round-trip

Answer 1

1. @BatchSize makes more sense for to-many associations (e.g. @OneToMany), not for to-one relations.

2. With batch fetching, you have (M/N + 1) database roundtrips, where M is the number of children entities in your uninitialized to-many association and N is the batch size.

3. If you want one and only one secondary database roundtrip, you need to use sub-select fetching.

4. For to-one associations (e.g. @ManyToOne) use JPQL or Criteria JOIN FETCH instead.