关于merge的更多细节将帮助你使用merge over persist:

Returning a managed instance other than the original entity is a critical part of the merge process. If an entity instance with the same identifier already exists in the persistence context, the provider will overwrite its state with the state of the entity that is being merged, but the managed version that existed already must be returned to the client so that it can be used. If the provider did not update the Employee instance in the persistence context, any references to that instance will become inconsistent with the new state being merged in. When merge() is invoked on a new entity, it behaves similarly to the persist() operation. It adds the entity to the persistence context, but instead of adding the original entity instance, it creates a new copy and manages that instance instead. The copy that is created by the merge() operation is persisted as if the persist() method were invoked on it. In the presence of relationships, the merge() operation will attempt to update the managed entity to point to managed versions of the entities referenced by the detached entity. If the entity has a relationship to an object that has no persistent identity, the outcome of the merge operation is undefined. Some providers might allow the managed copy to point to the non-persistent object, whereas others might throw an exception immediately. The merge() operation can be optionally cascaded in these cases to prevent an exception from occurring. We will cover cascading of the merge() operation later in this section. If an entity being merged points to a removed entity, an IllegalArgumentException exception will be thrown. Lazy-loading relationships are a special case in the merge operation. If a lazy-loading relationship was not triggered on an entity before it became detached, that relationship will be ignored when the entity is merged. If the relationship was triggered while managed and then set to null while the entity was detached, the managed version of the entity will likewise have the relationship cleared during the merge."

以上所有信息都摘自Mike Keith和Merrick Schnicariol的“Pro JPA 2掌握Java™Persistence API”。第六章。分段分离与合并。这本书实际上是作者专门介绍JPA的第二本书。这本新书比前一本有许多新信息。我非常推荐那些将认真参与JPA的人阅读这本书。我很抱歉匿名发布了我的第一个答案。

JPA规范说明了关于persist()的以下内容。

如果X是一个分离对象，则在持久化时可能会抛出EntityExistsException 操作被调用，或者EntityExistsException或另一个PersistenceException可能在刷新或提交时抛出。

因此，当对象不应该是分离对象时，使用persist()是合适的。您可能更喜欢让代码抛出PersistenceException，以便快速失败。

尽管规范不清楚，persist()可能会为对象设置@GeneratedValue @Id。但是merge()必须有一个已经生成的@Id对象。

persist(entity)应该与全新的实体一起使用，将它们添加到DB(如果实体已经存在于DB中，则会抛出EntityExistsException)。

应该使用Merge(实体)，如果实体被分离并被更改，则将实体放回持久性上下文中。

可能持久是生成INSERT sql语句和合并UPDATE sql语句(但我不确定)。

我注意到，当我使用em.merge时，每个INSERT都有一个SELECT语句，即使JPA没有为我生成字段——主键字段是我自己设置的UUID。我切换到em.persist(myEntityObject)，然后只得到INSERT语句。

另一个观察:

merge()只关心自动生成的id(在IDENTITY和SEQUENCE上测试)，当表中已经存在这样一个id的记录时。在这种情况下，merge()将尝试更新记录。 然而，如果一个id不存在或者不匹配任何现有的记录，merge()将完全忽略它，并要求db分配一个新的。这有时是许多bug的来源。不要使用merge()强制新记录的id。

另一方面，Persist()甚至不允许将id传递给它。它会立即失效。在我的例子中，它是:

原因:org.hibernate.PersistentObjectException:分离实体 传递到持久化

Hibernate-jpa javadoc有一个提示:

抛出:javax.persistence.EntityExistsException——如果实体 已经存在。(如果实体已经存在，则 当持久化操作时，可能会抛出EntityExistsException 或者EntityExistsException或另一个PersistenceException 可能在同花顺或提交时抛出。)

我发现Hibernate文档中的解释很有启发性，因为它们包含了一个用例:

The usage and semantics of merge() seems to be confusing for new users. Firstly, as long as you are not trying to use object state loaded in one entity manager in another new entity manager, you should not need to use merge() at all. Some whole applications will never use this method. Usually merge() is used in the following scenario: The application loads an object in the first entity manager the object is passed up to the presentation layer some modifications are made to the object the object is passed back down to the business logic layer the application persists these modifications by calling merge() in a second entity manager Here is the exact semantic of merge(): if there is a managed instance with the same identifier currently associated with the persistence context, copy the state of the given object onto the managed instance if there is no managed instance currently associated with the persistence context, try to load it from the database, or create a new managed instance the managed instance is returned the given instance does not become associated with the persistence context, it remains detached and is usually discarded

来自:http://docs.jboss.org/hibernate/entitymanager/3.6/reference/en/html/objectstate.html