How to deep copy a Hibernate entity while using a newly generated entity identifier

Just retrieve the object, detach it, set the id to null and persist it.

MyEntity clone = entityManager.find(MyEntity.class, ID);
entityManager.detach(clone);
clone.setId(null);
entityManager.persist(clone);

If your object have oneToMany relationships, you will have to repeat the operation for all the children but setting your parent object id (generated after the persist call) instead of null.

Of course you will have to remove any CASCADE persist on your OneToMany relationships cause otherwise your persist will create duplicates of all children in DB or fk constraint failures.

I am also working with Hibernate and I got the same requirement you got. What I followed was to implement Cloneable. Below is a code example of how to do it.

class Person implements Cloneable {

        private String firstName;
        private String lastName;

        public Object clone() {

            Person obj = new Person();
            obj.setFirstName(this.firstName);
            obj.setLastName(this.lastName);

            return obj;
        }

        public String getFirstName() {
            return firstName;
        }

        public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
            this.firstName = firstName;
        }

        public String getLastName() {
            return lastName;
        }

        public void setLastName(String lastName) {
            this.lastName = lastName;
        }
    }

Or you could go to a reflection based solution but I won't recommend that. Check this website for more details.

Using detach or deep cloning as suggested by others is not the way to go when it comes to cloning an entity. If you try to make this process completely automatic, you are going to miss the point that not all attributes are worth duplicating.

Therefore, you are better off using a copy constructor and controlling exactly what attributes need to be cloned.

So, if you have a Post entity like this one:

@Entity(name = "Post")
@Table(name = "post")
public class Post {
 
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private Long id;
 
    private String title;
 
    @OneToMany(
        mappedBy = "post",
        cascade = CascadeType.ALL, 
        orphanRemoval = true
    )
    private List<PostComment> comments = new ArrayList<>();
 
    @OneToOne(
        mappedBy = "post",
        cascade = CascadeType.ALL, 
        orphanRemoval = true, 
        fetch = FetchType.LAZY
    )
    private PostDetails details;
 
    @ManyToMany
    @JoinTable(
        name = "post_tag",
        joinColumns = @JoinColumn(
            name = "post_id"
        ),
        inverseJoinColumns = @JoinColumn(
            name = "tag_id"
        )
    )
    private Set<Tag> tags = new HashSet<>();
 
    //Getters and setters omitted for brevity
 
    public void addComment(
            PostComment comment) {
        comments.add(comment);
        comment.setPost(this);
    }
 
    public void addDetails(
            PostDetails details) {
        this.details = details;
        details.setPost(this);
    }
 
    public void removeDetails() {
        this.details.setPost(null);
        this.details = null;
    }
}

It does not make sense to clone the comments when duplicating a Post and using it as a template for a new one:

Post post = entityManager.createQuery("""
    select p
    from Post p
    join fetch p.details
    join fetch p.tags
    where p.title = :title
    """, Post.class)
.setParameter(
    "title", 
    "High-Performance Java Persistence, 1st edition"
)
.getSingleResult();
 
Post postClone = new Post(post);
postClone.setTitle(
    postClone.getTitle().replace("1st", "2nd")
);
entityManager.persist(postClone);

What you need to add to the Post entity is a copy constructor:

/**
 * Needed by Hibernate when hydrating the entity 
 * from the JDBC ResultSet
 */
private Post() {}
 
public Post(Post post) {
    this.title = post.title;
 
    addDetails(
        new PostDetails(post.details)
    );
 
    tags.addAll(post.getTags());
}

So, the copy constructor is the best way to address the entity clone/duplication problem.