`@EnableMongoAuditing` does not play well with `MongoRepository#insert`

[rfelgent]

Hello,

when pre-populating the @id field before doing a MongoRepository#insert, the auditing functionality will only set the @LastModifiedBy field and ignore the @CreatedBy field.

I expect the MongoRepository#insert method to force a isNew=true flag/strategy throughout the whole persist attempt so that the setting EnableMongoAuditing#modifyOnCreate() default true can kick in.

My current fix is to add a custom EntityCallback ensuring the setting of CreatedBy. This EntityCallback is getting executed after org.springframework.data.mongodb.core.mapping.eventAuditingEntityCallback

[mp911de]

This is due to a mix of intentions vs. is-new detection. While one could argue that exposing the insert method on the repository is a root of that problem, in reality we have also an insert method on MongoTemplate that uses the same entity callback.

Ideally, the repository should determine itself whether an entity is new or whether it exists. However, we do not have any means of propagating the is-new aspect into callbacks and I doubt we will ever have because that contextual information is not part of the interface.

[mp911de]

The two only options you have are:

1. Implementing Persistable interface to indicate to the auditing listener whether the object should be considered new.
2. Using optimistic locking via @Version. Optimistic locking checks the version property to determine whether an object is new or should exist on the database.

[rfelgent]

Hi @mp911de ,

thx for your time and your suggestions.
Please allow me to give feedback to your suggestions:

1. I was afraid, that you would come up with the Persistable interface. I dropped it entirely in my current project in favor of the "jdbcAggregationOperation#insert()" approach.

There are scenarios where "the isNew()" logic just fits better in business/service code instead of entity/model code.

I work with a lot of generated (model) code - extending them with logic (or an interface) is sometimes easy work and sometimes hard work.

2. Interesting ! If I am not mistaken, using @versioning functionality would "circumveil" my problem - how come ? Because of "version=0"/"version=null" ? The "id" field would not be taken into account but rather the "version" field ?

I like your 2) suggestion! Thank you very much !