Why and how to avoid selects on associated entities while updating?

[TheMCME]

Hi guys,

When I use the saveAndFlush(myObject) method, I see queries that select the associated entities just before the update.

For instance I have a class User and a class Company, the user as a ManyToOne association with company.
Let's say I delete a company and just after I want to update the user with the company set to null (let's forget about database foreign keys or constraints for now), it breaks because the saveAndFlush(user) does a select to retrieve the company which doesn't exist anymore since I just deleted it.

Why those selects? How can I avoid them?

Thanks!

[TheMCME]

Anybody? Maybe someone from Spring?

[TheMCME]

Still waiting for an explanation...