one side set in many-to-many relation - jpa

Question

I have three database tables: Customer, Product and PurchaseOrder (for mapping). I am using openjpa for peristence in java rest application.
To all of the tables I have corresponding entities:
Customer
#Entity
#Table(name = "customer")
#XmlRootElement
#NamedQueries({...})
public class Customer implements Serializable {
...
#OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, mappedBy = "customerId")
private Collection<PurchaseOrder> purchaseOrderCollection;
Product
#Entity
#Table(name = "product")
#XmlRootElement
#NamedQueries({...})
public class Product implements Serializable {
...
#OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, mappedBy = "productId")
private Collection<PurchaseOrder> purchaseOrderCollection;
PurchaseOrder
#Entity
#Table(name = "purchase_order")
#XmlRootElement
#NamedQueries({..})
public class PurchaseOrder implements Serializable {
...
#Id
#Basic(optional = false)
#Column(name = "order_num")
private Integer orderNum;
#JoinColumn(name = "customer_id", referencedColumnName = "customer_id")
#ManyToOne(optional = false)
private Customer customer;
#JoinColumn(name = "product_id", referencedColumnName = "product_id")
#ManyToOne(optional = false)
private Product product;
What is the best way to get all the customers who ordered a product with specific id?
I could create namedQuery, I could build criteria with joins etc. But i think there could be a better way how to make use of the mapping entity (what would be point of this entity otherway?). Something like setting the productId to the purchaseOrder entity and then fetch all the customers via purchaseOrderCollection in customer entity? But i cannot figure it out. Is there other way than custom/named query or criteria building?
Thanks.

Answer 1

ok I figured it out, it can be this way
long productId = //get the id
Product product = entityManager.find(Product.class, productId);
Collection<PurchaseOrder> purchaseOrderCollection = product.getPurchaseOrderCollection();
if (purchaseOrderCollection != null) {
List<Integer> customers = new ArrayList<>(product.getPurchaseOrderCollection().size());
for (PurchaseOrder purchaseOrder : product.getPurchaseOrderCollection()) {
customers.add(purchaseOrder.getCustomerId());
}
return customers;
} else {
return Collections.EMPTY_LIST; // or null;
}
feel free to offer better sollution :)