Hibernate : Why FetchType.LAZY-annotated collection property eagerly loading?

Question

I tried to implement simple one-to-many association. after inspecting the item object with debugging mode, I found that List<Bid> bids already loaded. But List<Bid> bids property is annotated with FetchType.LAZY. some books and web pages claim that FetchType.LAZY is a hint JPA providers accept or reject. But I wonder on what condition JPA providers ignore FetchType.LAZY. Thank you in advance.

@Entity
@Table(name = "ITEM")
public class Item implements Serializable {

    @Id
    private Long id = null;

    private String name;
    @ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.EAGER)
    @JoinColumn(name = "SELLER_ID", nullable = false)
    private User seller;

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "item", fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
    private List<Bid> bids;

    /**
     * No-arg constructor for JavaBean tools.
     */
    public Item() {}

    public Long getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(Long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public User getSeller() {
        return seller;
    }

    public void setSeller(User seller) {
        this.seller = seller;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Item{" +
                "id=" + id +
                ", name='" + name + '\'' +
                ", seller=" + seller +
                ", bids=" + bids +
                '}';
    }
}

@Entity
@Table(name = "BID")
public class Bid implements Serializable {

    @Id @GeneratedValue
    @Column(name = "BID_ID")
    private Long id = null;

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name = "ITEM_ID", nullable = false, updatable = false, insertable = false)
    private Item item;

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name = "BIDDER_ID", nullable = false, updatable = false)
    private User bidder;

    public Long getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(Long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public Item getItem() {
        return item;
    }

    public void setItem(Item item) {
        this.item = item;
    }

    public User getBidder() {
        return bidder;
    }

    public void setBidder(User bidder) {
        this.bidder = bidder;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Bid{" +
                "id=" + id +
                ", bidder=" + bidder +
                '}';
    }
}

private static void itemSeller(EntityManager em) {

    Item item = em.find(Item.class, 1L);
    System.out.println("hello");

}

EDIT : I put break point at the statement System.out.println("hello"). I inspected the item object. See the picture :

Answer 1

By inspecting the object in your debugger, you're asking it to call methods of the list to display its size, content, etc. And that of course initializes the list, lazily.

Same for your toString() method, which implicitely loops through the list to print it.