1.What is ORM ?

ORM stands for object/relational mapping. ORM is the automated persistence of objects in a
Java application to the tables in a relational database.

2.What does ORM consists of ?

An ORM solution consists of the followig four pieces:

• API for performing basic CRUD operations

• API to express ries refering to classes
• Facilities to specify metadata
• Optimization facilities : dirty checking,lazy associations fetching

3.What are the ORM levels ?

The ORM levels are:

• Pure relational (stored procedure.)

• Light objects mapping (JDBC)
• Medium object mapping
• Full object Mapping (composition,inheritance, polymorphism, persistence by
reachability)

4.What is Hibernate?
Hibernate is a pure Java object-relational mapping (ORM) and persistence framework that
allows you to map plain old Java objects to relational database tables using (XML) configuration
files.Its purpose is to relieve the developer from a significant amount of relational data
persistence-related programming tasks.

5.Why do you need ORM tools like hibernate?

The main advantage of ORM like hibernate is that it shields developers from messy SQL. Apart
from this, ORM provides following benefits:

• Improved productivity
o High-level object-oriented API
o Less Java code to write
o No SQL to write
• Improved performance
o Sophisticated caching
o Lazy loading
o Eager loading
• Improved maintainability
o A lot less code to write
• Improved portability
o ORM framework generates database-specific SQL for you

6.What Does Hibernate Simplify?

Hibernate simplifies:

• Saving and retrieving your domain objects

• Making database column and table name changes
 • Centralizing pre save and post retrieve logic
• Complex joins for retrieving related items
• Schema creation from object model

7.What is the need for Hibernate xml mapping file?

Hibernate mapping file tells Hibernate which tables and columns to use to load and store
objects. Typical mapping file look as follows:

8.What are the most common methods of Hibernate configuration?

The most common methods of Hibernate configuration are:

• Programmatic configuration
• XML configuration (hibernate.cfg.xml)

9.What are the important tags of hibernate.cfg.xml?

An Action Class is an adapter between the contents of an incoming HTTP rest and the
corresponding business logic that should be executed to process this rest.
10.What are the Core interfaces are of Hibernate framework?
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persistent objects and control transactions. Hibernate Tutorials

• Session interface
• SessionFactory interface
• Configuration interface
• Transaction interface
• Query and Criteria interfaces

11.What role does the Session interface play in Hibernate?

The Session interface is the primary interface used by Hibernate applications. It is a single-
threaded, short-lived object representing a conversation between the application and the
persistent store. It allows you to create query objects to retrieve persistent objects.

Session session = sessionFactory.openSession();

Session interface role:

• Wraps a JDBC connection

• Factory for Transaction
• Holds a mandatory (first-level) cache of persistent objects, used when navigating the
object graph or looking up objects by identifier

12.What role does the SessionFactory interface play in Hibernate?

The application obtains Session instances from a SessionFactory. There is typically a single
SessionFactory for the whole application—created during application initialization. The
SessionFactory caches generate SQL statements and other mapping metadata that Hibernate
uses at runtime. It also holds cached data that has been read in one unit of work and may be
reused in a future unit of work

SessionFactory sessionFactory = configuration.buildSessionFactory();

13.What is the general flow of Hibernate communication with RDBMS?

The general flow of Hibernate communication with RDBMS is :

• Load the Hibernate configuration file and create configuration object. It will
automatically load all hbm mapping files
• Create session factory from configuration object
• Get one session from this session factory
• Create HQL Query
• Execute query to get list containing Java objects

14.What is Hibernate Query Language (HQL)?

Hibernate offers a query language that embodies a very powerful and flexible mechanism to
query, store, update, and retrieve objects from a database. This language, the Hibernate query
Language (HQL), is an object-oriented extension to SQL.

15.How do you map Java Objects with Database tables?

 • First we need to write Java domain objects (beans with setter and getter). The
variables should be same as database columns.
• Write hbm.xml, where we map java class to table and database columns to Java class
variables.

Example :
<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="com.test.User" table="user">
<property column="USER_NAME" length="255"
name="userName" not-null="true" type="java.lang.String"/>
<property column="USER_PASSWORD" length="255"
name="userPassword" not-null="true"
type="java.lang.String"/>
</class>
</hibernate-mapping>

16.What’s the difference between load() and get()?

load() vs. get() :-
load() get()

Only use the load() method if you are sure If you are not sure that the object exists,
that the object exists. then use one of the get() methods.

load() method will throw an exception if the get() method will return null if the
unique id is not found in the database. unique id is not found in the database.

load() just returns a proxy by default and

database won’t be hit until the proxy is first get() will hit the database immediately.
invoked.

17.What is the difference between and merge and update ?

Use update() if you are sure that the session does not contain an already persistent instance
with the same identifier, and merge() if you want to merge your modifications at any time
without consideration of the state of the session.

18.How do you define sequence generated primary key in hibernate?

Using <generator> tag.
Example:-
<id column="USER_ID" name="id" type="java.lang.Long">
<generator class="sequence">
<param name="table">SEQUENCE_NAME</param>
<generator>
</id>
19.Define cascade and inverse option in one-many mapping?
cascade - enable operations to cascade to child entities.
cascade="all|none|save-update|delete|all-delete-orphan"

inverse - mark this collection as the "inverse" end of a bidirectional association.

inverse="true|false"
Essentially "inverse" indicates which end of a relationship should be ignored, so when persisting
a parent who has a collection of children, should you ask the parent for its list of children, or
ask the children who the parents are?

20.What do you mean by Named – SQL query?

Named SQL queries are defined in the mapping xml document and called wherever required.
Example:
<sql-query name = "empdetails">
<return alias="emp" class="com.test.Employee"/>
SELECT emp.EMP_ID AS {emp.empid},
emp.EMP_ADDRESS AS {emp.address},
emp.EMP_NAME AS {emp.name}
FROM Employee EMP WHERE emp.NAME LIKE :name
</sql-query>

Invoke Named Query :

List people = session.getNamedQuery("empdetails")
.setString("TomBrady", name)
.setMaxResults(50)
.list();

21.How do you invoke Stored Procedures?

<sql-query name="selectAllEmployees_SP" callable="true">

<return alias="emp" class="employee">
<return-property name="empid" column="EMP_ID"/>

<return-property name="name" column="EMP_NAME"/>

<return-property name="address" column="EMP_ADDRESS"/>
{ ? = call selectAllEmployees() }
</return>
</sql-query>

22.Explain Criteria API

Criteria is a simplified API for retrieving entities by composing Criterion objects. This is a very
convenient approach for functionality like "search" screens where there is a variable number of
conditions to be placed upon the result set.
Example :
List employees = session.createCriteria(Employee.class)
.add(Restrictions.like("name", "a%") )
.add(Restrictions.like("address",
"Boston"))
.addOrder(Order.asc("name") )
.list();

23.Define HibernateTemplate?
org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTemplate is a helper class which provides
different methods for querying/retrieving data from the database. It also converts checked
HibernateExceptions into unchecked DataAccessExceptions.

24.What are the benefits does HibernateTemplate provide?

The benefits of HibernateTemplate are :

• HibernateTemplate, a Spring Template class simplifies interactions with Hibernate

Session.
• Common functions are simplified to single method calls.
• Sessions are automatically closed.
• Exceptions are automatically caught and converted to runtime exceptions.

25.How do you switch between relational databases without code changes?

Using Hibernate SQL Dialects , we can switch databases. Hibernate will generate appropriate
hql queries based on the dialect defined.

26.If you want to see the Hibernate generated SQL statements on console, what should we
do?
In Hibernate configuration file set as follows:
<property name="show_sql">true</property>

27.What are derived properties?

The properties that are not mapped to a column, but calculated at runtime by evaluation of an
expression are called derived properties. The expression can be defined using the formula
attribute of the element.
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28.What is component mapping in Hibernate? Hibernate Tutorials

• A component is an object saved as a value, not as a reference

• A component can be saved directly without needing to declare interfaces or identifier
properties
• Required to define an empty constructor
• Shared references not supported

Example:

29.What is the difference between sorted and ordered collection in hibernate?

sorted collection vs. order collection :-
sorted collection order collection

A sorted collection is sorting a collection by

utilizing the sorting features provided by the
Order collection is sorting a collection by
Java collections framework. The sorting
specifying the order-by clause for sorting
occurs in the memory of JVM which running
this collection when retrieval.
Hibernate, after the data being read from
database using java comparator.

If your collection is not large, it will be more If your collection is very large, it will be
efficient way to sort it. more efficient way to sort it .
31.What is the advantage of Hibernate over jdbc?
Hibernate Vs. JDBC :-
JDBC
With JDBC, developer has to write code to
map an object model's data representation
to a relational data model and its
corresponding database schema.
With JDBC, the automatic mapping of Java
objects with database tables and vice versa
conversion is to be taken care of by the
developer manually with lines of code.
JDBC supports only native Structured Query
Language (SQL). Developer has to find out
the efficient way to access database, i.e. to
select effective query from a number of
queries to perform same task.
Application using JDBC to handle persistent
data (database tables) having database
specific code in large amount. The code
written to map table data to application
objects and vice versa is actually to map
table fields to object properties. As table
changed or database changed then it’s
essential to change object structure as well
as to change code written to map table-to-
object/object-to-table.
With JDBC, it is developer’s responsibility to
handle JDBC result set and convert it to Java
objects through code to use this persistent
data in application. So with JDBC, mapping
between Java objects and database tables is
done manually.
With JDBC, caching is maintained by hand-
coding.
Hibernate
Hibernate is flexible and powerful ORM
solution to map Java classes to database
tables. Hibernate itself takes care of this
mapping using XML files so developer does
not need to write code for this.
Hibernate provides transparent persistence
and developer does not need to write code
explicitly to map database tables tuples to
application objects during interaction with
RDBMS.
Hibernate provides a powerful query
language Hibernate Query Language
(independent from type of database) that is
expressed in a familiar SQL like syntax and
includes full support for polymorphic
queries. Hibernate also supports native SQL
statements. It also selects an effective way
to perform a database manipulation task for
an application.
Hibernate provides this mapping itself. The
actual mapping between tables and
application objects is done in XML files. If
there is change in Database or in any table
then the only need to change XML file
properties.
Hibernate reduces lines of code by
maintaining object-table mapping itself and
returns result to application in form of Java
objects. It relieves programmer from manual
handling of persistent data, hence reducing
the development time and maintenance
cost.
Hibernate, with Transparent Persistence,
cache is set to application work space.
Relational tuples are moved to this cache as
a result of query. It improves performance if
client application reads same data many
times for same write. Automatic Transparent
Persistence allows the developer to
concentrate more on business logic rather
than this application code.

In JDBC there is no check that always every
user has updated data. This check has to be
added by the developer.
Hibernate enables developer to define
version type field to application, due to this
defined field Hibernate updates version field
of database table every time relational tuple
is updated in form of Java class object to
that table. So if two users retrieve same
tuple and then modify it and one user save
this modified tuple to database, version is
automatically updated for this tuple by
Hibernate. When other user tries to save
updated tuple to database then it does not
allow saving it because this user does not
have updated data.

32.What are the Collection types in Hibernate ?

• Bag
• Set
• List
• Array
• Map

33.What are the ways to express joins in HQL?

HQL provides four ways of expressing (inner and outer) joins:-

• An implicit association join

• An ordinary join in the FROM clause
• A fetch join in the FROM clause.
• A theta-style join in the WHERE clause.

34.Define cascade and inverse option in one-many mapping?

cascade - enable operations to cascade to child entities.
cascade="all|none|save-update|delete|all-delete-orphan"

inverse - mark this collection as the "inverse" end of a bidirectional association.

inverse="true|false"
Essentially "inverse" indicates which end of a relationship should be ignored, so when persisting
a parent who has a collection of children, should you ask the parent for its list of children, or
ask the children who the parents are?

35.What is Hibernate proxy?

The proxy attribute enables lazy initialization of persistent instances of the class. Hibernate
will initially return CGLIB proxies which implement the named interface. The actual persistent
object will be loaded when a method of the proxy is invoked.

36.How can Hibernate be configured to access an instance variable directly and not
through a setter method ?
By mapping the property with access="field" in Hibernate metadata. This forces hibernate to
bypass the setter method and access the instance variable directly while initializing a newly
loaded object.

37.How can a whole class be mapped as immutable?

Mark the class as mutable="false" (Default is true),. This specifies that instances of the class
are (not) mutable. Immutable classes, may not be updated or deleted by the application.

38.What is the use of dynamic-insert and dynamic-update attributes in a class mapping?

Criteria is a simplified API for retrieving entities by composing Criterion objects. This is a very
convenient approach for functionality like "search" screens where there is a variable number of
conditions to be placed upon the result set.

• dynamic-update (defaults to false): Specifies that UPDATE SQL should be generated at

runtime and contain only those columns whose values have changed
• dynamic-insert (defaults to false): Specifies that INSERT SQL should be generated at
runtime and contain only the columns whose values are not null.

39.What do you mean by fetching strategy ?

A fetching strategy is the strategy Hibernate will use for retrieving associated objects if the
application needs to navigate the association. Fetch strategies may be declared in the O/R
mapping metadata, or over-ridden by a particular HQL or Criteria query.

40.What is automatic dirty checking?

Automatic dirty checking is a feature that saves us the effort of explicitly asking Hibernate to
update the database when we modify the state of an object inside a transaction.

41.What is transactional write-behind?

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42.What are Callback interfaces? Webservices Questions
Callback interfaces allow the application to receive a
notification when something interesting happens to an object—
for example, when an object is loaded, saved, or deleted. Hibernate applications don't need to
implement these callbacks, but they're useful for implementing certain kinds of generic
functionality.

43.What are the types of Hibernate instance states ?

Three types of instance states:

• Transient -The instance is not associated with any persistence context

• Persistent -The instance is associated with a persistence context
• Detached -The instance was associated with a persistence context which has been
closed – currently not associated
44.What are the differences between EJB 3.0 & Hibernate
Hibernate Vs EJB 3.0 :-
Hibernate EJB 3.0

Persistence Context-Set of entities that

Session–Cache or collection of loaded objects
can be managed by a given EntityManager is
relating to a single unit of work
defined by a persistence unit

XDoclet Annotations used to support Java 5.0 Annotations used to support

Attribute Oriented Programming Attribute Oriented Programming

Defines HQL for expressing queries to the

Defines EJB QL for expressing queries
database

Supports Entity Relationships through Support Entity Relationships through Java

mapping files and annotations in JavaDoc 5.0 annotations

Provides a Persistence Manager API exposed

Provides and Entity Manager Interface for
via the Session, Query, Criteria, and
managing CRUD operations for an Entity
Transaction API

Provides callback support through lifecycle, Provides callback support through Entity
interceptor, and validatable interfaces Listener and Callback methods

Entity Relationships are unidirectional.

Entity Relationships are bidirectional or
Bidirectional relationships are implemented
unidirectional
by two unidirectional relationships

45.What are the types of inheritance models in Hibernate?

There are three types of inheritance models in Hibernate:

• Table per class hierarchy

• Table per subclass
• Table per concrete class

Q. How will you configure Hibernate?

Answer:

The configuration files hibernate.cfg.xml (or hibernate. properties) and mapping files
*.hbm.xml are used by the Configuration class to create (i.e. configure and bootstrap
hibernate) the SessionFactory, which in turn creates the Session instances. Session instances
are the primary interface for the persistence service.

• hibernate.cfg.xml (alternatively can use hibernate.properties): These two files are used to
configure the hibernate sevice (connection driver class, connection URL, connection username,
connection password, dialect etc). If both files are present in the classpath then
hibernate.cfg.xml file overrides the settings found in the hibernate.properties file.

• Mapping files (*.hbm.xml): These files are used to map persistent objects to a relational
database. It is the best practice to store each object in an individual mapping file (i.e mapping
file per class) because storing large number of persistent classes into one mapping file can be
difficult to manage and maintain. The naming convention is to use the same name as the
persistent (POJO) class name. For example Account.class will have a mapping file named
Account.hbm.xml. Alternatively hibernate annotations can be used as part of your persistent
class code instead of the *.hbm.xml files.

Q. What is a Session Factory? Is it a thread-safe object?

Answer:

SessionFactory is Hibernate’s concept of a single datastore and is threadsafe so that many

threads can access it concurrently and request for sessions and immutable cache of compiled
mappings for a single database. A SessionFactory is usually only built once at startup.
SessionFactory should be wrapped in some kind of singleton so that it can be easily accessed
in an application code.

SessionFactory sessionFactory = new Configuration().configure().buildSessionfactory();

Q. What is a Session? Can you share a session object between different theads?

Answer:

Session is a light weight and a non-threadsafe object (No, you cannot share it between
threads) that represents a single unit-of-work with the database. Sessions are opened by a
SessionFactory and then are closed when all work is complete. Session is the primary interface
for the persistence service. A session obtains a database connection lazily (i.e. only when
required). To avoid creating too many sessions ThreadLocal class can be used as shown below
to get the current session no matter how many times you make call to the currentSession()
method.

…
public class HibernateUtil {
…
public static final ThreadLocal local = new ThreadLocal();

public static Session currentSession() throws HibernateException {

Session session = (Session) local.get();
//open a new session if this thread has no session
if(session == null) {
session = sessionFactory.openSession();
local.set(session);
}
return session;
}
}

It is also vital that you close your session after your unit of work completes. Note: Keep your
Hibernate Session API handy.

Q. What are the benefits of detached objects?

Answer:

Detached objects can be passed across layers all the way up to the presentation layer without
having to use any DTOs (Data Transfer Objects). You can later on re-attach the detached
objects to another session.
Q. What are the pros and cons of detached objects?

Answer:

Pros:

• When long transactions are required due to user think-time, it is the best practice to break
the long transaction up into two or more transactions. You can use detached objects from the
first transaction to carry data all the way up to the presentation layer. These detached objects
get modified outside a transaction and later on re-attached to a new transaction via another
session.

Cons

• In general, working with detached objects is quite cumbersome, and better to not clutter up
the session with them if possible. It is better to discard them and re-fetch them on subsequent
requests. This approach is not only more portable but also more efficient because - the objects
hang around in Hibernate's cache anyway.

• Also from pure rich domain driven design perspective it is recommended to use DTOs
(DataTransferObjects) and DOs (DomainObjects) to maintain the separation between Service
and UI tiers.

Q. How does Hibernate distinguish between transient (i.e. newly instantiated) and
detached objects?

Answer

• Hibernate uses the “version” property, if there is one.

• If not uses the identifier value. No identifier value means a new object. This does work only
for Hibernate managed surrogate keys. Does not work for natural keys and assigned (i.e. not
managed by Hibernate) surrogate keys.
• Write your own strategy with Interceptor.isUnsaved().

Q. What is the difference between the session.get() method and the session.load() method?

Both the session.get(..) and session.load() methods create a persistent object by loading the required
object from the database. But if there was not such object in the database then the method
session.load(..) throws an exception whereas session.get(…) returns null.

Q. What is the difference between the session.update() method and the session.lock() method?

Both of these methods and saveOrUpdate() method are intended for reattaching a detached object. The
session.lock() method simply reattaches the object to the session without checking or updating the
database on the assumption that the database in sync with the detached object. It is the best practice to
use either session.update(..) or session.saveOrUpdate(). Use session.lock() only if you are absolutely sure
that the detached object is in sync with your detached object or if it does not matter because you will be
overwriting all the columns that would have changed later on within the same transaction.

Note: When you reattach detached objects you need to make sure that the dependent objects are
reatched as well.

Q. How would you reatach detached objects to a session when the same object has already
been loaded into the session?

You can use the session.merge() method call.

Q. What are the general considerations or best practices for defining your Hibernate persistent
classes?

1.You must have a default no-argument constructor for your persistent classes and there should be
getXXX() (i.e accessor/getter) and setXXX( i.e. mutator/setter) methods for all your persistable instance
variables.

2.You should implement the equals() and hashCode() methods based on your business key and it is
important not to use the id field in your equals() and hashCode() definition if the id field is a surrogate key
(i.e. Hibernate managed identifier). This is because the Hibernate only generates and sets the field when
saving the object.

3. It is recommended to implement the Serializable interface. This is potentially useful if you want to
migrate around a multi-processor cluster.

4.The persistent class should not be final because if it is final then lazy loading cannot be used by creating
proxy objects.

5.Use XDoclet tags for generating your *.hbm.xml files or Annotations (JDK 1.5 onwards), which are less
verbose than *.hbm.xml files.

Would like to hear more questions and answers from the readers.....................

How can I count the number of query results without actually returning
them?

Integer count = (Integer) session.createQuery("select count(*)

from ....").uniqueResult();

How can I find the size of a collection without initializing it?

Integer size = (Integer) s.createFilter( collection, "select

count(*)" ).uniqueResult();

How can I order by the size of a collection?

Use a left join, together with group by

select user
from User user
left join user.messages msg
group by user
order by count(msg)

How can I place a condition upon a collection size?

If your database supports subselects:

from User user where size(user.messages) >= 1

or:

from User user where exists elements(user.messages)

If not, and in the case of a one-to-many or many-to-many association:

select user
from User user
join user.messages msg
group by user
having count(msg) >= 1

Because of the inner join, this form can't be used to return a User with zero messages, so the following form is
also useful

select user
from User as user
left join user.messages as msg
group by user
having count(msg) = 0

How can I query for entities with empty collections?

from Box box

where box.balls is empty

Or, try this:

select box
 from Box box
left join box.balls ball
where ball is null

How can I sort / order collection elements?

There are three different approaches:

1. Use a SortedSet or SortedMap, specifying a comparator class in the sort attribute or <set> or <map>. This
solution does a sort in memory.

2. Specify an order-by attribute of <set>, <map> or <bag>, naming a list of table columns to sort by. This
solution works only in JDK 1.4+.

3. Use a filter session.createFilter( collection, "order by ...." ).list()

Are collections pageable?

Query q = s.createFilter( collection, "" ); // the trivial filter

q.setMaxResults(PAGE_SIZE);
q.setFirstResult(PAGE_SIZE * pageNumber);
List page = q.list();

I have a one-to-one association between two classes. Ensuring that

associated objects have matching identifiers is bugprone. Is there a
better way?

<generator class="foreign">
<param name="property">parent</param>
</generator>

I have a many-to-many association between two tables, but the association

table has some extra columns (apart from the foreign keys). What kind
of mapping should I use?

Use a composite-element to model the association table. For example, given the following association table:

create table relationship (

fk_of_foo bigint not null,
fk_of_bar bigint not null,
multiplicity smallint,
created date )

you could use this collection mapping (inside the mapping for class Foo):
 <set name="relationship">
<key column="fk_of_foo"/>
<composite-element class="Relationship">
<property name="multiplicity" type="short" not-null="true"/>
<property name="created" type="date" not-null="true"/>
<many-to-one name="bar" class="Bar" not-null="true"/>
</composite-element>
</set>

You may also use an <idbag> with a surrogate key column for the collection table. This would allow you to have
nullable columns.

An alternative approach is to simply map the association table as a normal entity class with two bidirectional one-
to-many associations.

In an MVC application, how can we ensure that all proxies and lazy
collections will be initialized when the view tries to access them?

One possible approach is to leave the session open (and transaction uncommitted) when forwarding to the view.
The session/transaction would be closed/committed after the view is rendered in, for example, a servlet filter
(another example would by to use the ModelLifetime.discard() callback in Maverick). One difficulty with this
approach is making sure the session/transaction is closed/rolled back if an exception occurs rendering the view.

Another approach is to simply force initialization of all needed objects using Hibernate.initialize(). This is
often more straightforward than it sounds.

How can I bind a dynamic list of values into an in query expression?

Query q = s.createQuery("from foo in class Foo where foo.id in (:id_list)");

q.setParameterList("id_list", fooIdList);
List foos = q.list();

How can I bind properties of a JavaBean to named query parameters?

Query q = s.createQuery("from foo in class Foo where foo.name=:name and

foo.size=:size");
q.setProperties(fooBean); // fooBean has getName() and getSize()
List foos = q.list();

Can I map an inner class?

You may persist any static inner class. You should specify the class name using the standard form ie.
eg.Foo$Bar
How can I assign a default value to a property when the database column is
null?

Use a UserType.

How can I truncate String data?

Use a UserType.

How can I trim spaces from String data persisted to a CHAR column?

Use a UserType.

How can I convert the type of a property to/from the database column type?

Use a UserType.

How can I get access to O/R mapping information such as table and
column names at runtime?

This information is available via the Configuration object. For example, entity mappings may be obtained using
Configuration.getClassMapping(). It is even possible to manipulate this metamodel at runtime and then
build a new SessionFactory.

How can I create an association to an entity without fetching that entity

from the database (if I know the identifier)?

If the entity is proxyable (lazy="true"), simply use load(). The following code does not result in any SELECT
statement:

Item itemProxy = (Item) session.load(Item.class, itemId);

Bid bid = new Bid(user, amount, itemProxy);
session.save(bid);

How can I retrieve the identifier of an associated object, without fetching

the association?

Just do it. The following code does not result in any SELECT statement, even if the item association is lazy.

Long itemId = bid.getItem().getId();

This works if getItem() returns a proxy and if you mapped the identifier property with regular accessor methods.
If you enabled direct field access for the id of an Item, the Item proxy will be initialized if you call getId(). This
method is then treated like any other business method of the proxy, initialization is required if it is called.
How can I manipulate mappings at runtime?

You can access (and modify) the Hibernate metamodel via the Configuration object, using
getClassMapping(), getCollectionMapping(), etc.

Note that the SessionFactory is immutable and does not retain any reference to the Configuration instance,
so you must re-build it if you wish to activate the modified mappings.

How can I avoid n+1 SQL SELECT queries when running a Hibernate query?

Follow the best practices guide! Ensure that all <class> and <collection> mappings specify lazy="true" in
Hibernate2 (this is the new default in Hibernate3). Use HQL LEFT JOIN FETCH to specify which associations you
need to be retrieved in the initial SQL SELECT.

A second way to avoid the n+1 selects problem is to use fetch="subselect" in Hibernate3.

If you are still unsure, refer to the Hibernate documentation and Hibernate in Action.

I have a collection with second-level cache enabled, and Hibernate

retrieves the collection elements one at a time with a SQL query per
element!

Enable second-level cache for the associated entity class. Don't cache collections of uncached entity types.

How can I insert XML data into Oracle using the xmltype() function?

Specify custom SQL INSERT (and UPDATE) statements using <sql-insert> and <sql-update> in Hibernate3,
or using a custom persister in Hibernate 2.1.

You will also need to write a UserType to perform binding to/from the PreparedStatement.

How can I execute arbitrary SQL using Hibernate?

PreparedStatement ps = session.connection().prepareStatement(sqlString);

Or, if you wish to retrieve managed entity objects, use session.createSQLQuery().

Or, in Hibernate3, override generated SQL using <sql-insert>, <sql-update>, <sql-delete> and
<loader> in the mapping document.

I want to call an SQL function from HQL, but the HQL parser does not
recognize it!

Subclass your Dialect, and call registerFunction() from the constructor.

Hibernate Interview Questions

Q: What is Hibernate?
A: Hibernate is a java-based Object/relational mapping(ORM) tool.

Q: What are ORM tools?

A: ORM tools provide automated solutions for the Object/relational paradigm
mismatch problem, using metadata that describes the mapping between the
objects and the database.

Q: What is Object/relational paradigm mismatch?

A: Object-Oriented paradigm is based on software engineering principles,
whereas relational paradigm on mathematical principles. Object-oriented
technology supports the building of applications out of networks of objects with
both data and behavior. Relational technology supports the storage of data in
tables and manipulation of that data using data manipulation language (DML).
Because the underlying paradigms are different the two technologies do not work
seamlessly, hence the name Object/relational paradigm mismatch.

Q: What role does the Session interface play in Hibernate?

A: The Session is a persistence manager that manages operation like storing and
retrieving objects. Instances of Session are inexpensive to create and destroy.
They are not threadsafe.

Q: What is SessionFactory interface?

A: The application obtains Session instances from a SessionFactory.
SessionFactory instances are not lightweight and typically one instance is created
for the whole application. If the application accesses multiple databases, it needs
one per database

Q: What is Configuration interface?

A: The application uses a Configuration instance to specify the location of
mapping documents and Hibernate-specific properties and then creates the
SessionFactory.

Q: What is the naming convention for Hibernate XML mapping file extensions?
A: .hbm.xml
Q: What are the most common methods of configuring Hibernate?
A: 1. By placing hibernate.properties file in the classpath.
2. Including <property> elements in hibernate.cfg.xml in the classpath.

Q: How can the mapping files be configured in Hibernate?

A: 1. Mapping files can be added to Configuration in the application code or,
2. They can be configured in hibernate.cfg.xml using the <mapping> elements.

Q: What happens when both hibernate.properties and hibernate.cfg.xml are in

the classpath?
A: The settings of the XML configuration file will override the settings used in the
properties.

Q: Since SessionFactory instances are not lightweight, where is the single created
instance placed in J2EE environments?
A: Usually it is bound to JNDI, it will bind itself automatically if
hibernate.session_factory_name is set to the name of directory node.

Q: How to set Hibernate to log all generated SQL to the console?

A: By setting the hibernate.show_sql property to true.

Q: In hibernate, what interfaces/classes must the persistent classes (classes that

are mapped to database tables) implement/extend?
A: NONE, they can be regular POJOs.

Q: Does hibernate require persistent classes to implement Serializable?

A: Hibernate doesn't require that persistent classes implement Serializable.
However, when objects are stored in an HttpSession or passed by value using
RMI, serialization is necessary.

Q: What methods must the persistent classes implement in Hibernate?

A: Since Hibernate instantiates persistent classes using
Constructor.newInstance(), it requires a constructor with no arguments for every
persistent class. And getter and setter methods for all the instance variables.
Q: How can Hibernate be configured to access a instance variable directly and not
through a setter method?
A: By mapping the property with access="field" in Hibernate metadata. This
forces hibernate to bypass the setter method and access the instance variable
directly while initializing a newly loaded object.

Q: What is dirty checking in Hibernate?

A: Hibernate automatically detects object state changes in order to synchronize
the updated state with the database, this is called dirty checking. An important
note here is, Hibernate will compare objects by value, except for Collections,
which are compared by identity. For this reason you should return exactly the
same collection instance as Hibernate passed to the setter method to prevent
unnecessary database updates.

Q: What is the root level element in a hibernate mapping file?

A: <hibernate-mapping>

Q: Is it possible to declare mappings for multiple classes in one mapping file?

A: Yes, by using multiple <class> elements. But, the recommended practice is to
use one mapping file per persistent class.

Q: How are the individual properties mapped to different table columns?

A: By using multiple <property> elements inside the <class> element.

Q: What are derived properties?

A: The properties that are not mapped to a column, but calculated at runtime by
evaluation of an expression are called derived properties. The expression can be
defined using the formula attribute of the <property> element.

Q: How can you make a property be read from the database but not modified in
anyway (make it immutable)?
A: By using the insert="false" and update="false" attributes.

Q: How can a whole class be mapped as immutable?

A: By using the mutable="false" attribute in the class mapping.
Q: What is the use of dynamic-insert and dynamic-update attributes in a class
mapping?
A: They tell hibernate whether to include unmodified properties in SQL INSERT
and SQL UPDATE.

Q: How do you achieve table-per-class hierarchy while mapping classes in

Hibernate?
A: By using several <subclass> elements one for each sub-class inside the <class>
element. The <subclass> class element can in turn contain other <subclass>
elements.

Q: How do you achieve table-per-subclass while mapping classes in Hibernate?

A: By using <joined-subclass> element inside the <class> element. A <joined-
subclass> element may contain other <joined-subclass> elements.

Q: Does hibernate allow mixing table-per-class hierarchy and table-per-subclass

strategies?
A: No, you cannot have a <joined-subclass> inside <subclass> and vice versa.