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TOTD #122: Creating a JPA Persistence Unit using NetBeans 6.8

Taking TOTD #121 forward, this blog explains how to create a JPA Persistence Unit for a MySQL sample database and package it as a library. This JAR file can then be easily included in other web applications.

Lets get started!

1. Configure GlassFish for using the MySQL sample database (sakila) as described in TOTD #121.
2. Add the GlassFish instance in NetBeans IDE using "Services" panel.
3. Create JPA entities using NetBeans IDE.
   1. Create a Java class library:
      
      
      
      Our ultimate goal is to create a reusable JAR file and that's why this project type is chosen.
      
   2. Specify the name of project as "SakilaPU":
      
      
      
   3. Right-click on the project and select "New", "Entity Classes from Database ..." to initiate the process of entity generation:
      
      
   4. Choose the database connection as:
      
      
      
      If not configured, then can be easily done by clicking on "New Database Connection ..." in the list box.
      1. Click on "Add All >>" to generate the mapped JPA entities for all tables and views.
      2. The views do not have primary keys and will need to be appropriately annotated (described later).
      3. Click on "Next >".
         
   5. Give the package name as:
      
      
      
      and specify the package name as "sakila". Click on "Create Persistence Unit ...".
   6. Change the default PU name from "SakilaPUPU" to "SakilaPU":
      
      
      
      and click on "Finish". Notice that "EclipseLink", the Reference Implementation of JPA 2.0, is used as the persistence library.
   7. Add "@javax.persistence.Id" annotation to the following class/field combination:

      Class	Field
      sakila.SalesByFilmCategory	category
      sakila.ActorInfo	actorId
      sakila.FilmList	fid
      sakila.CustomerList	id
      sakila.NicerButSlowerFilmList	fid
      sakila.StaffList	id
      sakila.SalesByStore	store

      
      This is required because none of the "views" are defined with a primary key.

   8. Right-click on the project and select "Clean & Build". This generates "dist/SakilaPU.jar" and the structure looks like:

      

This JAR file can now be included in any web application. The pre-built JAR file can also be downloaded here.

In order for this PU to be used in an application server (such as GlassFish) that is pre-configured with a JDBC resource, the "persistence.xml" needs to be changed to:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<persistence version="2.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd">
 <persistence-unit name="SakilaPU" transaction-type="JTA">
 <jta-data-source>jdbc/sakila</jta-data-source>
 <properties/>
 </persistence-unit>
</persistence>

The JDBC resource name is specified using <jta-data-source>.

The key items to note about this pre-built JAR:

• Persistence Unit Name: "SakilaPU"
• All classes are in "sakila.*" package.
• Each class has a pre-defined "<CLASS-NAME>.findAll" named query that returns all elements from the underlying view/table.

This JAR can be installed to your local Maven repository as:

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=SakilaPU.jar -DgroupId=org.glassfish.samples -DartifactId=sakilapu -Dversion=1.0 -Dpackaging=jar -DgeneratePom=true

and then included in your "pom.xml" as:

 <dependency>
   <groupId>org.glassfish.samples</groupId>
   <artifactId>sakilapu</artifactId>
   <version>1.0</version>
   <scope>compile</scope>
 </dependency>

Even though this blog uses a MySQL sample database, these steps can be easily followed for any other database such as Oracle or JavaDB.

Technorati: totd javaee glassfish v3 jpa eclipselink persistenceunit mysql sakila netbeans

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