I have the classic setup

public class Parent {
    Integer id;
    ...
    // No generics
    Collection someCollectionAttribute;
    ...
    public void setChildren(Collection c) {
        ...
    }
}

public class Child {
    Integer id;
    ...
}

and I'm trying to map this on the usual table setup using iBatis (version 2.30... don't ask).

create table parents (
    ID integer primary key
    ...
)

create table children (
    ID integer primary key
    PARENT_ID integer references parents(id)
    ...
)

My mapping file looks like this

<resultMap id="ParentResult" groupBy="id">
    <result property="id" column="ID" />
    ...
    <result property="children" resultMap="ChildResult" />
</resultMap>

<resultMap id="ChildResult">
    <result property="id" column="ID" />
    <result property="parentId" column="PARENT_ID" />
    ...
</result>

<sql id="loadParent" resultMap="ParentResult">
    select P.ID as p1, ..., C.ID as c1, C.PARENT_ID as c2 ...
    from   parents P
    join   children C on (P.ID = C.PARENT_ID)
    where  P.ID = #id#
    order by P.ID
</sql>

Doing the usual sqlMap.queryForObject("loadParent", new Integer(42)) at first caused a NullPointerException inside the setChildren setter which apparently is called with a null argument (my bad). Fixing the setter everything works fine, but the logs show that setChildren is called only once before even running a single SQL statement, still with a null argument, so I'm wondering what's going on here. Anyone has any clues?