Cache collision and ehcache spring annotations module

If you are looking for a way to implement declarative caching with Spring, there is no way around Ehcache Spring Annotations [1]. This superimposes a transparent aspect on methods of any proxied bean, taking the method arguments as a key.

Little known but easy to stumble upon [2] is an implementation (design?) quirk which expects method arguments to generate unique hash codes, ignoring the Java convention of the equals() method behavior. Hence, method arguments computing the same hash code will map to the same cache entry regardless whether they equal() or not.

Update 2011-11-08 Here is an example (stripped down to essentials, use your imagination for getters, constructors, sensible null-checks etc):

class Customer{
    int id;
    int hashcode(){
        return id % 10;
    }
    boolean equals(Object o){
        return ((Customer)o.id) == id; 
    }
}
class ReceiptDAOImpl implements ReceiptDAO{
    @Cacheable 
    List getReceiptsForCustomer(Customer c){
    // do some database queries and get a list or receipts 
   }
}
class TestCollision{
@Test 
void testCollision(){
     Customer c1 = new Customer(1);
     Customer c2 = new Customer(11);
     List receipts1 = dao.getReceiptsForCustomer(c1);
     List receipts2 = dao.getReceiptsForCustomer(c2);
     assertTrue(receipts1 != receipts2); // fails because dao returns the same cached list
} 
}