JPA Auditing in Spring Boot allows you to automatically track who created or modified an entity and when. This is extremely useful for audit logs, history tracking, and debugging.
JPA Auditing in Spring Boot allows you to automatically track who created or modified an entity and when. This is extremely useful for audit logs, history tracking, and debugging.
In this section, we clarify Why Use JPA Auditing? and summarize the key points you will apply in implementation.
createdDate, lastModifiedDatecreatedBy, modifiedByBefore you start, prepare the following:
Make sure you have the following dependencies in your project:
Maven:
<dependency> <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId> <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId> </dependency>
Gradle:
dependencies { implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa' }
Add @EnableJpaAuditing to your main class or a configuration class.
This bean tells Spring Security who the current user is. Here's a basic static user example:
Use auditing annotations like @CreatedDate, @LastModifiedDate, etc.
Now when you save an entity using JpaRepository, auditing fields will be populated automatically.
You can test JPA Auditing functionality by saving an entity and checking whether the audit fields are populated.
You now have a practical Spring Boot JPA Auditing implementation with a clear, production-friendly Spring Boot structure. As a next step, adapt configuration and tests to your own domain, then validate behavior under realistic traffic and failure scenarios.
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication; import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication; import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.config.EnableJpaAuditing; @SpringBootApplication @EnableJpaAuditing(auditorAwareRef = "auditorProvider") public class DemoApplication { public static void main(String[] args) { SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args); } }
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication import org.springframework.boot.runApplication import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.config.EnableJpaAuditing @SpringBootApplication @EnableJpaAuditing(auditorAwareRef = "auditorProvider") class DemoApplication fun main(args: Array<String>) { runApplication<DemoApplication>(*args) }
@Configuration public class AuditingConfig { @Bean public AuditorAware<String> auditorProvider() { return () -> Optional.of("Şuayb"); } }
@Configuration class AuditingConfig { @Bean fun auditorProvider(): AuditorAware<String> = AuditorAware { Optional.of("Şuayb") } }
@Entity @EntityListeners(AuditingEntityListener.class) public class Article { @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY) private Long id; private String title; @CreatedDate private LocalDateTime createdDate; @LastModifiedDate private LocalDateTime lastModifiedDate; @CreatedBy private String createdBy; @LastModifiedBy private String lastModifiedBy; // getters & setters }
@Entity @EntityListeners(AuditingEntityListener::class) data class Article( @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY) val id: Long? = null, var title: String? = null, @CreatedDate var createdDate: LocalDateTime? = null, @LastModifiedDate var lastModifiedDate: LocalDateTime? = null, @CreatedBy var createdBy: String? = null, @LastModifiedBy var lastModifiedBy: String? = null )
@SpringBootTest @AutoConfigureTestDatabase @Transactional class ArticleRepositoryTest { @Autowired private ArticleRepository articleRepository; @Test void testAuditFieldsAreSet() { Article article = new Article(); article.setTitle("Test Title"); Article saved = articleRepository.save(article); assertNotNull(saved.getCreatedDate()); assertNotNull(saved.getLastModifiedDate()); assertEquals("Şuayb", saved.getCreatedBy()); assertEquals("Şuayb", saved.getLastModifiedBy()); } }
@SpringBootTest @AutoConfigureTestDatabase @Transactional class ArticleRepositoryTest { @Autowired lateinit var articleRepository: ArticleRepository @Test fun `should set audit fields`() { val article = Article().apply { title = "Test Title" } val saved = articleRepository.save(article) assertNotNull(saved.createdDate) assertNotNull(saved.lastModifiedDate) assertEquals("Şuayb", saved.createdBy) assertEquals("Şuayb", saved.lastModifiedBy) } }