Create The Review Entity

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Reviews are a key component of our restaurant platform, allowing users to share their experiences and ratings.

In this lesson, we'll create the Review entity that will store review content, ratings, and related data.

Understanding the Review Structure

The Review entity will contain several important pieces of information:

The review content and rating
Who wrote the review
When it was posted and last edited
Any photos attached to the review

Let's create our Review class with all these components.

Creating the Review Entity

Let's create our Review class in the com.devtiro.restaurant.domain.entities package:

package com.devtiro.restaurant.domain.entities;

import lombok.*;
import org.springframework.data.elasticsearch.annotations.DateFormat;
import org.springframework.data.elasticsearch.annotations.Field;
import org.springframework.data.elasticsearch.annotations.FieldType;

import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

@Data
@AllArgsConstructor
@NoArgsConstructor
@Builder
public class Review {

    @Field(type = FieldType.Keyword)
    private String id;

    @Field(type = FieldType.Text)
    private String content;

    @Field(type = FieldType.Integer)
    private Integer rating;

    @Field(type = FieldType.Date, format = DateFormat.date_hour_minute_second)
    private LocalDateTime datePosted;

    @Field(type = FieldType.Date, format = DateFormat.date_hour_minute_second)
    private LocalDateTime lastEdited;

    @Field(type = FieldType.Nested)
    private List<Photo> photos = new ArrayList<>();

    @Field(type = FieldType.Nested)
    private User writtenBy;
}

Understanding the Fields

The rating field uses FieldType.Integer, which is new to our application.

This field type is perfect for numeric values that we want to use in calculations, like computing average ratings.

For our date fields, we use the DateFormat.date_hour_minute_second format to capture precise timestamps of when reviews are posted and edited.

The photos field is initialized with an empty ArrayList to ensure we never have a null list, making it safer to work with.

Summary

Created the Review entity with content and rating fields
Added timestamp fields with proper DateFormat configuration
Used FieldType.Integer for the rating field
Included nested Photo and User relationships
Initialized the photos list for safe handling