title: JPA parent/child relationship
body: <p>Using JPA (Hibernate) I'm trying to implement the below relationship and was wondering if others have any suggestions about the best approach:</p>
  
  <pre><code>@Entity(name="SOMETHING")
  public class Something {
      List&lt;MetaDatum&gt; metaData;
  }
  
  @Entity(name="SOMETHING_COMPLETELY_DIFFERENT")
  public class SomethingCompletelyDifferent {
      List&lt;MetaDatum&gt; metaData;
  }
  
  @Entity(name="META")
  public class MetaDatum {
  
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Basically it's <code>n</code> completely unrelated objects which each have a collection of common child objects; simple to implement in the object model, slightly more troublesome in the database!</p>
  
  <p>I'm sure this must be a common occurrence but I've had trouble finding any example implementations since I don't really know the right search terms.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks for your time!</p>