Licensed to Jose Carlos Romero Figueroa <jose.romero@galicia.seresco.es> 349 Development processes Good ORM software comes bundled with a set of tools, and so does Hibernate. In this chapter, we’ll discuss the Hibernate toolset. These tools can automatically gen- erate mapping metadata, SQL database schemas, and even Java POJO source code. However, you have to use the right tool for your specific development process. 9.1 Development processes In some projects, the development of a domain model is driven by developers ana- lyzing the business domain in object-oriented terms. In others, it’s heavily influ- enced by an existing relational data model: either a legacy database or a brand-new schema designed by a professional data modeler. Since different projects start from different points, we need to consider differ- ent development scenarios and the different tools that may be used in each case. An overview of the tools and the artifacts they use as source and output is shown in figure 9.1. You may want to refer to this diagram while reading this chapter. NOTE Note that AndroMDA, a tool that generates POJO source code from UML diagram files, isn’t strictly considered part of the common Hibernate toolset; hence we don’t discuss it in this chapter. See the community area on the Hibernate website for more information about the Hibernate modules in AndroMDA. Before we begin looking closely at any of the particular tools you can use with Hibernate, we’ll briefly survey the main scenarios and mention the tools that are most appropriate to each. Mapping Metadata Database Schema POJO Java Source SchemaExport (hbm2ddl) XDoclet XML/XMI AndroMDA CodeGenerato r (hbm2java) Middlegen UML Model Figure 9.1 Input and output of the tools used for Hibernate development Licensed to Jose Carlos Romero Figueroa <jose.romero@galicia.seresco.es> 350 CHAPTER 9 Using the toolset 9.1.1 Top down In top-down development, you start with an existing Java domain model (ideally imple- mented with POJOs/JavaBeans) and complete freedom with respect to the data- base schema. You must create a mapping document—either manually using a text editor (recommended is an IDE with XML auto-completion) or automatically using XDoclet—and then let Hibernate’s hbm2ddl tool generate the database schema. In the absence of an existing data model, this is the most comfortable development style for most Java developers. You can even use the Hibernate tools to automati- cally refresh the database schema on every application restart in development. 9.1.2 Bottom up Conversely, bottom-up development begins with an existing database schema and data model. In this case, the easiest way to proceed is to use Middlegen to generate Hibernate mapping documents and then run the hbm2java tool and generate skel- etal POJO persistent classes. You’ll usually have to enhance and modify the gener- ated Hibernate mapping by hand, because not all class association details and Java- specific meta-information can be automatically generated from an SQL schema. 9.1.3 Middle out (metadata oriented) Neither Java classes (without XDoclet annotations) nor DDL schemas contain enough information to be able to completely deduce an ORM. Hence, if you wish to generate the Hibernate mapping document instead of writing it by hand, you’ll need extra input from the user. In the case of XDoclet, this information is provided by XDoclet attributes embedded in the source code. In the case of Middlegen, it’s provided via the Middlegen GUI. On the other hand, the mapping document does provide sufficient information to completely deduce the DDL schema and to generate working JavaBeans. Fur- thermore, the mapping document isn’t too verbose. So, you may prefer middle-out development, where you begin with a handwritten Hibernate mapping document and generate the DDL using hbm2ddl and Java classes using hbm2java . 9.1.4 Meet in the middle The most difficult scenario combines existing Java classes and an existing rela- tional schema. In this case, there is little that the Hibernate toolset can do to help. It isn’t possible to map arbitrary Java domain models to a given schema, so this sce- nario usually requires at least some refactoring of the Java classes, database Licensed to Jose Carlos Romero Figueroa <jose.romero@galicia.seresco.es> Automatic schema generation 351 schema, or both. The mapping document must almost certainly be written by hand (although it might be possible to use XDoclet). This is an incredibly painful sce- nario that is, fortunately, exceedingly rare. 9.1.5 Roundtripping The notion of roundtripping is that any one of the three kinds of artifacts (Java classes, mapping documents, database schema) should be sufficient to reproduce the other two. Each tool should be completely reversible. You’ve already seen that this isn’t the case. At the very least, you must add XDoclet annotations to the Java classes. Worse, it’s never possible to fully reproduce the Java domain model or ORM from only the database schema. Nevertheless, the Hibernate team is attempting to achieve a slightly less ambi- tious goal for the Hibernate toolset. Suppose you start with an existing database schema. Then the following steps should reproduce this schema exactly, with min- imal user intervention: 1 Use Middlegen to create a mapping document 2 Use hbm2java to generate annotated Java classes 3 Use XDoclet to regenerate the mapping document 4 Use hbm2ddl to generate the DDL At the time of this writing, there is still work to be done before this approach works perfectly, because it involves many different tools and metamodel conversions. We’ll now look more closely at each of the tools we’ve mentioned, starting with hbm2ddl . This tool is used to automatically generate SQL DDL from Hibernate map- ping metadata. We assume that you’ve already created some POJO persistent classes and the relevant Hibernate mappings and are now looking for a way to simplify the creation of the schema in the database. 9.2 Automatic schema generation Schemas for SQL-based database management systems are written in the SQL DDL . This includes well-known statements such as CREATE and ALTER . The tool used for the generation process is called hbm2ddl . Its class is net.sf.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaExport; hence it’s also sometimes called SchemaExport . Licensed to Jose Carlos Romero Figueroa <jose.romero@galicia.seresco.es> 352 CHAPTER 9 Using the toolset NOTE The Hibernate extensions package—You may have noticed that hbm2ddl resides inside the main Hibernate distribution and isn’t packaged with the other tools in HibernateExtensions . The Hibernate team decided that hbm2ddl is much closer to the core functionality of Hibernate than any of the other tools and should be bundled with Hibernate itself. In addition, you can run hbm2ddl from an application to automatically gen- erate a database schema at runtime. This ability is especially useful if you’d like to initialize the database every time the application in develop- ment restarts. In Hibernate, the prerequisite for automatically generating SQL DDL is always a Hibernate mapping metadata definition in XML. We assume that you’ve designed and implemented your POJO classes and written mapping metadata, but you prob- ably haven’t paid much attention to database-specific details (like table and col- umn names). Some special elements and attributes can be used in the mapping files; most of them are relevant only for a customized schema. Hibernate tries to use sensible defaults if you don’t specify your own names and strategies; however, be warned that a professional DBA might not accept this default schema without manual changes. Nevertheless, the defaults may be satisfactory for a development or pro- totype environment. 9.2.1 Preparing the mapping metadata In this example, we’ve marked up the mapping for the Item class with hbm2ddl -spe- cific attributes and elements. These optional definitions integrate seamlessly with the other mapping elements, as you can see in listing 9.1. Listing 9.1 Additional elements in the Item mapping for SchemaExport <class name="Item" table="ITEM"> <id name="id" type="string"> <column name="ITEM_ID" sql-type="char(32)"/> B <generator class="uuid.hex"/> </id> <property name="name" type="string"> <column name="NAME" not-null="true" length="255" index="IDX_ITEMNAME"/> C </property> <property name="description" type="string" Licensed to Jose Carlos Romero Figueroa <jose.romero@galicia.seresco.es> 353Automatic schema generation column="DESCRIPTION" length="4000"/> D <property name="initialPrice" type="customtype.MonetaryAmount"> <column name="INITIAL_PRICE" check="INITIAL_PRICE > 0"/> E <column name="INITIAL_PRICE_CURRENCY"/> </property> <set name="categories" table="CATEGORY_ITEM" cascade="none"> <key <column="ITEM_ID" sql-type="char(32)"/> F </key> <many-to-many class="Category"> <column="CATEGORY_ID" sql-type="char(32)/> </many-to-many> </set> </class> B hbm2ddl automatically generates a VARCHAR typed column if a property (even the identifier property) is of mapping type string . We know the identifier generator uuid.hex always generates strings that are 32 characters long; so, we use a CHAR SQL type and also set its size fixed at 32 characters. The nested <column> element is required for this declaration because there is no attribute to specify the SQL datatype on the <id> element. C The column , not-null , and length attributes are also available on the <property> element, but we want to create an additional index in the database, hence we again use a nested <column> element. This index will speed our searches for items by name. If we reuse the same index name on other property mappings, we can create an index that includes multiple database columns. The value of this attribute is also used to name the index in the database catalog. D For the description field, we chose the lazy approach, using the attributes on the <property> element instead of a <column> element. The DESCRIPTION column will be generated as VARCHAR(4000) . E The custom user-defined type MonetaryAmount requires two database columns to work with. We have to use the <column> element. The check attribute triggers the creation of a check constraint; the value in that column must match the given arbi- trary SQL expression. Note that there is also a check attribute for the <class> ele- ment, which is useful for multicolumn check constraints. Licensed to Jose Carlos Romero Figueroa <jose.romero@galicia.seresco.es> 354 CHAPTER 9 Using the toolset A <column> element can also be used to declare the foreign key fields in an associ- F ation mapping. Otherwise, the columns of our association table CATEGORY_ITEM would be VARCHAR(32) instead of the more appropriate CHAR(32) type. We’ve grouped all attributes relevant for schema generation in table 9.1; some of them weren’t included in the previous Item mapping example. Table 9.1 XML mapping attributes for hbm2ddl Attribute Value Description column string Usable in most mapping elements; declares the name of the SQL column. hbm2ddl (and Hibernate’s core) defaults to the name of the Java property) if the column attribute is omitted and no nested <column> element is present. This behavior may be changed by implementing a custom NamingStrategy; see the section “Naming conventions” in chapter 3. not-null true/false Forces the generation of a NOT NULL column constraint. Available as an attribute on most mapping elements and also on the dedi- cated <column> element. unique true/false Forces the generation of a single-column UNIQUE constraint. Available for various mapping elements. length integer Can be used to define a "length" of a datatype. For example, length="4000" for a string mapped property generates a VARCHAR(4000) column. This attribute is also used to define the precision of decimal types. index string Defines the name of a database index that can be shared by mul- tiple elements. An index on a single column is also possible. Only available with the <column> element. unique-key string Enables unique constraints involving multiple database columns. All elements using this attribute must share the same constraint name to be part of a single constraint definition. This is a <col- umn> element-only attribute. sql-type string Overrides hbm2ddl’s automatic detection of the SQL datatype; useful for database specific data types. Be aware that this effec- tively prevents database independence: hbm2ddl will automati- cally generate a VARCHAR or VARCHAR2 (for Oracle), but it will always use a declared SQL-type instead, if present. This attribute can only be used with the dedicated <column> element. foreign-key string Names a foreign-key constraint, available for <many-to-one>, <one-to-one>, <key>, and <many-to-many> mapping ele- ments. Note that inverse="true" sides of an association map- ping won’t be considered for foreign key naming, only the non- inverse side. If no names are provided, Hibernate generates unique random names. Licensed to Jose Carlos Romero Figueroa <jose.romero@galicia.seresco.es> Automatic schema generation 355 After you’ve reviewed (probably together with a DBA) your mapping files and added schema-related attributes, you can create the schema. 9.2.2 Creating the schema The hbm2ddl tool can be called from the command line: java -cp classpath net.sf.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaExport options mapping_files You have to make sure that Hibernate and its third-party libraries are in the class- path, along with your compiled persistent classes. Table 9.2 shows the options for hbm2ddl . Table 9.2 Command-line hbm2ddl configuration options quiet . drop text . output= Option Description Don’t output the script to stdout Only drop the tables and clean the database. Don’t export the DDL directly to the database, but only to stdout filename Output the DDL script to the given file. config=filename Read the database configuration from a Hibernate XML configuration file. properties=filename Read database properties from a Hibernate properties file. format Format the generated SQL nicely in the script instead of using one row for each statement. delimiter=x; Set an end-of-line delimiter for the script (usually a semicolon). The default is to not output an end-of-line delimiter. This delimiter is used only in tex- tual output; it isn’t relevant if the DDL is executed immediately. As you can see from these options, the DDL can be directly executed. Doing so requires database connection settings in a properties file (or XML-based config- uration). The DDL generated by hbm2ddl will always drop all tables and regener- ate them; this is especially useful in development. Remember that a Hibernate database dialect is required in the configuration, because SQL DDL is highly vendor-specific. One of the reasons hbm2ddl is distributed with the core Hibernate package is its ability to be started from inside an application, as shown here: Configuration cfg = new Configuration(); SchemaExport schemaExport = new SchemaExport(cfg); schemaExport.create(false, true); Licensed to Jose Carlos Romero Figueroa <jose.romero@galicia.seresco.es> 356 CHAPTER 9 Using the toolset A new SchemaExport object is created from a Configuration . If you use a hiber- nate . cfg.xml , the database connection settings and the dialect will be available in the Configuration and passed to the SchemaExport constructor. The cre- ate(false, true) call triggers the DDL creation process without any SQL printed to stdout (false) but with DDL immediately executed in the database (true). See the SchemaExport API for more information; all command-line options are also avail- able directly in Java and can be set on the SchemaExport object. The hbm2ddl tool can also be globally controlled by Hibernate configuration properties—for example, in the hibernate.properties : hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto create-drop Setting hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto to create-drop enforces a drop and a create of the database schema if buildSessionFactory() is called (usually, when a Hibernate application starts). Once you close() the SessionFactory , the schema is dropped again. Setting this parameter to create only drops and creates the schema when the SessionFactory is created. There is also an update setting for automatic updates of schema for schema evolution. The SchemaUpdate tool is used for that purpose, as discussed in the next section. You may not be satisfied with these three options. Running hbm2ddl from the command line feels awkward, and using it inside your application isn’t helpful in all development scenarios. If you, like most Java developers, use Ant to built projects, you can use an Ant task for automatic schema generation: <target name="schemaexport"> <taskdef name="schemaexport" classname="net.sf.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaExportTask" classpathref="class.path"/> <schemaexport config="${basedir}/etc/hibernate_export.cfg.xml" quiet="no" text="no" drop="no" delimiter=";" output="schema-export.sql"> <fileset dir="src"> <include name="**/*.hbm.xml"/> </fileset> </schemaexport> </target> This example uses an Ant task definition, and the task may be called with different options. In this case, the DDL is exported to a file ( schema-export.sql ) with a semi- colon as a line delimiter. We also enable the DDL generation for all mapping files Licensed to Jose Carlos Romero Figueroa <jose.romero@galicia.seresco.es> Automatic schema generation 357 found in the src directory and export it directly to the database ( text="no" ). The database connection settings (and the dialect) are read from the hibernate_ export.cfg.xml found in the etc/ subdirectory. 9.2.3 Updating the schema Once you’ve deployed an application, it becomes difficult to alter the database schema. This can even be the case in development, if your scenario requires test data that has to be redeployed after every schema change. With hbm2ddl , your only choice is to drop the existing structure and create it again, possibly followed by a time-consuming test data import. Hibernate comes bundled with a tool for schema evolution, SchemaUpdate , which is used to update an existing SQL database schema; it drops obsolete tables, col- umns, and constraints. It uses the JDBC metadata and creates new tables and con- straints by comparing the old schema with the updated mapping information. Note that SchemaUpdat e depends on the quality of the metadata provided by the JDBC drivers, so it may not work as expected with some databases and drivers. (We actu- ally think that SchemaUpdate is not very usable in practice at the time of writing.) You can run SchemaUpdate from inside an application, as shown here: Configuration cfg = new Configuration(); SchemaUpdate schemaUpdate = new SchemaUpdate(cfg); schemaUpdate.execute(false, true); A SchemaUpdate object is created from an existing Configuration . It requires the same settings (database connection and dialect) as hbm2ddl . This example only updates the database, without any DDL statements printed to stdout (as specified by false). Of course, you can also use SchemaUpdate in an Ant build script: <target name="schemaupdate"> <taskdef name="schemaupdate" classname="net.sf.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaUpdateTask" classpathref="class.path"/> <schemaupdate properties="hibernate.properties" quiet="no"> <fileset dir="src"> <include name="**/*.hbm.xml"/> </fileset> </schemaupdate> </target> Licensed to Jose Carlos Romero Figueroa <jose.romero@galicia.seresco.es> 358 CHAPTER 9 Using the toolset This task updates the database schema for all mapping files found in the src direc- tory and also prints the DDL to stdout. Database connection settings are read from the hibernate.properties file found in the classpath. The hbm2ddl tool is popular; most Hibernate projects use it in a top-down devel- opment process. It uses the Hibernate mapping metadata to generate a database schema that should conform with the expectations of any DBA. However, it isn’t the only Hibernate tool that utilizes mapping metadata. In a bottom-up or middle-out development process, you can also generate Java source for persistent classes. 9.3 Generating POJO code Hibernate’s tool for automatic generation of persistent classes is called hbm2java ; its main class is net.sf.hibernate.tool.hbm2java.CodeGenerator . This tool is also known as CodeGenerator , and it’s available in the optional Hiberna- teExtensions distribution. You should use hbm2java for ■ POJO source generation from Hibernate mapping files, using a middle-out development approach ■ POJO source generation from mapping files that have also been automati- cally generated by Middlegen from an existing (legacy) database schema hbm2java is highly customizable; you use extra metadata in the mapping files as with hbm2ddl . The Hibernate toolset documentation explains the basic usage of the tool and includes an overview of all possible configuration parameters. Instead of repeating them here, we’ll discuss a practical example. 9.3.1 Adding meta-attributes Let’s assume that we have an existing Hibernate mapping file for the User class, and we’d like to generate the source for the class using the POJO conventions. As dis- cussed in chapter 3, a POJO implements Serializable and has a no-arguments con- structor, getters and setters for all properties, and an encapsulated implementation. We generally use Hibernate’s defaults in the mapping metadata and try to write as little metadata as possible. Some of the Hibernate defaults are generated using reflection on existing persistent classes. Of course, you can’t rely on this auto-detec- tion mechanism when you’re using hbm2java , because there are no classes to reflect on. [...]... eliminating duplicate rows from the result In SQL, the columns to be included are listed in the select clause You can eliminate duplicate rows by specifying the distinct keyword: select distinct NAME from ITEM A Cartesian product (also called a cross join) produces a new table consisting of all possible combinations of rows of two existing tables In SQL, you express a Carte­ sian product by listing... SQL type in the schema metadata (such as NUMBER (10, 2) in Oracle) The default mechanism used for type detection isn’t perfect, however Consider the RANKING column in the USER table The SQL data type in Oracle for this column is NUMBER (10, 0) Middlegen will by default generate the following Hibernate map­ ping XML: Figure... 360 CHAPTER 9 Using the toolset in our application’s log output So, we change the mapping of User to include it in the generated code: true The generated code of the toString() method in User.java looks like this: public String toString() { return new ToStringBuilder(this) .append("id", getId())... field in the database can be Selecting each column in the table overview and changing its property type manually isn’t the best way to solve this problem Hibernate s plugin for Middlegen comes bundled with a custom type-mapper that helps; it has to be turned on in the Middlegen Ant task: ... 362 CHAPTER 9 Using the toolset public static List findAll() throws SQLException, HibernateException { Session session = HibernateUtil.getSession(); List finds = session.find("from User"); return finds; } We recommend this approach instead of the clumsy additional parameter for each finder method See chapter 8 for more information on the thread-local session and the HibernateUtil class Finally, you can... join the ITEM and the BID table on their common ITEM_ID attribute: select * from ITEM i inner join BID b on i.ITEM_ID = b.ITEM_ID A join is equivalent to a Cartesian product followed by a restriction So, joins are often instead expressed in theta style, with a product in the from clause and the join condition in the where clause This SQL theta-style join is equivalent to the previous ANSI-style join:... for fine-tuning code generation Most are related to visibility, interface implementation, class extension, and predefined Javadoc comments Two of the meta-attributes are more interesting, because they control the automatic generation of finder methods 9.3.2 Generating finders A finder is a static method that may be called by application code to retrieve objects from the database It’s part of a finder... pleting the bottom-up development process If you’re working from the top down, you start with POJO persistent classes Instead of manually creating the mapping metadata and the database schema for these classes, you mark up your source with custom Javadoc tags and generate Hibernate mapping files with XDoclet The Hibernate tool hbm2ddl creates SQL files with DDL from Hibernate mapping metadata, completing... name: in this case, CaveatEmptor-prefs.properties Finally, you configure the Hibernate plugin You have to set the target directory for the generated mapping files In this example, we use the same directory that we might later use for the generated POJO source files (with hbm2java), so XML mapping files and persistent classes are in the same path The package setting is used for all classes in the mapping... express a Carte­ sian product by listing tables in the from clause: select * from ITEM i, BID b A relational join produces a new table by combining the rows of two tables For each pair of rows for which a join condition is true, the new table contains a row with all field values from both joined rows In ANSI SQL, the join clause specifies a table join; the join condition follows the on keyword For example, . processes In some projects, the development of a domain model is driven by developers ana- lyzing the business domain in object-oriented terms. In others, it’s heavily influ- enced by an existing relational. unique-key string Enables unique constraints involving multiple database columns. All elements using this attribute must share the same constraint name to be part of a single constraint definition initialize the database every time the application in develop- ment restarts. In Hibernate, the prerequisite for automatically generating SQL DDL is always a Hibernate mapping metadata definition