How do I build simple search page using ZK and Spring Boot?

In this example we are going to build a simple search page using ZK framework and Spring Boot. We are going to use the latest available version of Spring Boot (3.0.0) and ZK Framework (9.6.0.2). So without taking more time let’s start by creating a new spring boot project with the following pom.xml. You can create the initial project using your IDE or spring initializr.

Create a Spring Boot project and add the following dependencies:

  • zkspringboot-starter
  • zkplus
  • spring-boot-devtools
  • spring-boot-starter-data-jpa
  • mysql-connector-j
  • lombok

The pom.xml File

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.0</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>

    <groupId>org.kodejava</groupId>
    <artifactId>kodejava-zk-search</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>kodejava-zk-search</name>
    <description>kodejava-zk-search</description>

    <properties>
        <java.version>17</java.version>
        <zkspringboot.version>3.0.0</zkspringboot.version>
        <zk.version.jakarta>9.6.0.2-jakarta</zk.version.jakarta>
        <zk.version>9.6.0.2</zk.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.zkoss.zkspringboot</groupId>
            <artifactId>zkspringboot-starter</artifactId>
            <type>pom</type>
            <version>${zkspringboot.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.zkoss.zk</groupId>
            <artifactId>zkplus</artifactId>
            <version>${zk.version.jakarta}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
            <optional>true</optional>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
            <artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
            <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
            <optional>true</optional>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <excludes>
                        <exclude>
                            <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
                            <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
                        </exclude>
                    </excludes>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

    <repositories>
        <repository>
            <id>ZK CE</id>
            <name>ZK CE Repository</name>
            <url>https://mavensync.zkoss.org/maven2</url>
        </repository>
        <repository>
            <id>ZK EVAL</id>
            <name>ZK Evaluation Repository</name>
            <url>https://mavensync.zkoss.org/eval</url>
        </repository>
    </repositories>

</project>

application.properties File

This properties file configure ZK application homepage and the prefix where the zul files are located. We also configure the datasource to our application database.

zk.homepage=label
zk.zul-view-resolver-prefix=/zul
zk.resource-uri=/zkres

spring.datasource.driver-class-name=com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver
spring.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost/musicdb
spring.datasource.username=root
spring.datasource.password=

spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=create

Label.java Entity Definition

An entity that represent out record label with just two property of id and name. Getters and setters are generated by Lombok library, it also generated to equals() and hashcode() method, and also the toString() method.

package org.kodejava.zk.entity;

import jakarta.persistence.*;
import lombok.Data;

@Data
@Entity
public class Label {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;
    private String name;
}

The LabelRepository.java definition.

Create the LabelRepository which extends the JpaRepository and JpaSpecificationExecutor interfaces.

package org.kodejava.zk.repository;

import org.kodejava.zk.entity.Label;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaSpecificationExecutor;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Repository;

@Repository
public interface LabelRepository extends JpaRepository<Label, Long>, JpaSpecificationExecutor<Label> {
}

AbstractSearchController.java a base search controller.

A base class that we can use to implements all the search page in an application. Basically it provides the method to search our application data. It defines a couple of abstract method that need to be implemented by the search controller classes such as what repository to use and the specification for searching the data. We can also define the default sort column and the direction of the data sorting.

package org.kodejava.zk.controller;

import org.springframework.data.domain.Sort;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.domain.Specification;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaSpecificationExecutor;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.Component;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.event.Event;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.select.SelectorComposer;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.select.annotation.Listen;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.select.annotation.VariableResolver;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.select.annotation.Wire;
import org.zkoss.zul.Listbox;

@VariableResolver(org.zkoss.zkplus.spring.DelegatingVariableResolver.class)
public abstract class AbstractSearchController<T> extends SelectorComposer<Component> {
    @Wire
    protected Listbox listbox;

    public abstract JpaSpecificationExecutor<T> getRepository();

    public abstract Specification<T> getSpecification();

    public abstract String getCacheKey();

    protected String getDefaultSortColumn() {
        return "id";
    }

    protected Sort.Direction getDefaultSortDirection() {
        return Sort.Direction.ASC;
    }

    protected boolean getMultiple() {
        return false;
    }

    @Override
    public void doAfterCompose(Component comp) throws Exception {
        super.doAfterCompose(comp);
        search();
    }

    @Listen("onClick=#searchButton")
    public void search() {
        listbox.setVisible(true);
        SearchListModel<T> model = new SearchListModel<>(getRepository(), getSpecification(), getCacheKey());
        model.setMultiple(getMultiple());
        model.setDefaultSortColumn(getDefaultSortColumn());
        model.setDefaultSortDirection(getDefaultSortDirection());
        listbox.setModel(model);
        listbox.setActivePage(0);
    }

    @Listen("onOK=#searchForm")
    public void onEnterPressed(Event event) {
        search();
    }

    public int getPageSize() {
        return SearchListModel.PAGE_SIZE;
    }
}

SearchListModel.java

An implementation of ListModel, this class will query the database using the provided repository and specification. It read data page-by-page and cache it so when we navigating the Listbox page it doesn’t read the data that have already been cached.

package org.kodejava.zk.controller;

import org.springframework.data.domain.Page;
import org.springframework.data.domain.PageRequest;
import org.springframework.data.domain.Sort;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.domain.Specification;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaSpecificationExecutor;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.Execution;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.Executions;
import org.zkoss.zul.FieldComparator;
import org.zkoss.zul.ListModelList;

import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

public class SearchListModel<T> extends ListModelList<T> {
    public static final int PAGE_SIZE = 5;
    private final JpaSpecificationExecutor<T> repository;
    private final String cacheKey;
    private long totalElements;

    private Comparator<T> comparator;
    private boolean ascending = false;
    private final Specification<T> specification;
    private Sort.Direction defaultSortDirection = Sort.Direction.ASC;
    private String defaultSortColumn = "id";

    public SearchListModel(JpaSpecificationExecutor<T> repository, Specification<T> specification, String cacheKey) {
        this.repository = repository;
        this.specification = specification;
        this.cacheKey = cacheKey;
        this.totalElements = repository.count(specification);
    }

    @Override
    public T getElementAt(int index) {
        Map<Integer, T> cache = getCache();

        T target = cache.get(index);
        if (target == null) {
            Sort sort = Sort.by(getDefaultSortDirection(), getDefaultSortColumn());
            if (comparator != null) {
                FieldComparator fieldComparator = (FieldComparator) comparator;
                String orderBy = fieldComparator.getRawOrderBy();
                sort = Sort.by(ascending ? Sort.Direction.ASC : Sort.Direction.DESC, orderBy);
            }
            Page<T> pageResult = repository.findAll(specification, PageRequest.of(getPage(index), PAGE_SIZE, sort));
            totalElements = pageResult.getTotalElements();
            int indexKey = index;
            for (T t : pageResult.toList()) {
                cache.put(indexKey, t);
                indexKey++;
            }
        } else {
            return target;
        }

        target = cache.get(index);
        if (target == null) {
            throw new RuntimeException("element at " + index + " cannot be found in the database.");
        } else {
            return target;
        }
    }

    @Override
    public int getSize() {
        return (int) totalElements;
    }

    @Override
    public void sort(Comparator<T> comparator, boolean ascending) {
        super.sort(comparator, ascending);
        this.comparator = comparator;
        this.ascending = ascending;
    }

    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    private Map<Integer, T> getCache() {
        Execution execution = Executions.getCurrent();
        Map<Integer, T> cache = (Map<Integer, T>) execution.getAttribute(cacheKey);
        if (cache == null) {
            cache = new HashMap<>();
            execution.setAttribute(cacheKey, cache);
        }
        return cache;
    }

    private int getPage(int index) {
        if (index != 0) {
            return index / PAGE_SIZE;
        }
        return index;
    }

    public Sort.Direction getDefaultSortDirection() {
        return defaultSortDirection;
    }

    public void setDefaultSortDirection(Sort.Direction defaultSortDirection) {
        this.defaultSortDirection = defaultSortDirection;
    }

    public String getDefaultSortColumn() {
        return defaultSortColumn;
    }

    public void setDefaultSortColumn(String defaultSortColumn) {
        this.defaultSortColumn = defaultSortColumn;
    }
}

LabelSearchController.java

Our label search page controller which extends from AbstractSearchController class. We provide the LabelRepository and the Specification to filter the data.

package org.kodejava.zk.controller;

import jakarta.persistence.criteria.Predicate;
import org.kodejava.zk.entity.Label;
import org.kodejava.zk.repository.LabelRepository;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.domain.Specification;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaSpecificationExecutor;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.select.annotation.VariableResolver;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.select.annotation.Wire;
import org.zkoss.zk.ui.select.annotation.WireVariable;
import org.zkoss.zul.Textbox;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

@VariableResolver(org.zkoss.zkplus.spring.DelegatingVariableResolver.class)
public class LabelSearchController extends AbstractSearchController<Label> {
    @WireVariable
    private LabelRepository labelRepository;

    @Wire
    private Textbox labelNameTextbox;

    @Override
    public JpaSpecificationExecutor<Label> getRepository() {
        return labelRepository;
    }

    @Override
    public Specification<Label> getSpecification() {
        return (root, query, criteriaBuilder) -> {
            List<Predicate> predicates = new ArrayList<>();
            String labelName = labelNameTextbox.getValue();
            if (!labelName.isBlank()) {
                predicates.add(criteriaBuilder.like(root.get("name"), "%" + labelName + "%"));
            }
            return criteriaBuilder.and(predicates.toArray(new Predicate[0]));
        };
    }

    @Override
    public String getCacheKey() {
        return "LABEL_CACHE_KEY";
    }
}

label-search.zul – Label Search Page in ZUL

The search page with a label name Textfield to search by label name. The Listbox will display the data with pagination.

<zk>
    <window id="labelSearchWin" zclass="none" border="none" visible="true"
            apply="org.kodejava.zk.controller.LabelSearchController" width="100%">

        <grid id="searchForm">
            <columns>
                <column width="200px"/>
                <column/>
            </columns>
            <rows>
                <row>
                    <label value="Label Name"/>
                    <textbox id="labelNameTextbox" width="450px" maxlength="50"/>
                </row>
            </rows>
        </grid>

        <separator/>

        <hlayout>
            <button id="searchButton" label="Search"/>
        </hlayout>

        <separator/>

        <vlayout>
            <listbox id="listbox" mold="paging" pageSize="${labelSearchWin$composer.pageSize}" visible="false">
                <listhead>
                    <listheader label="No" hflex="min"/>
                    <listheader label="Label Name" sort="auto(name)"/>
                    <listheader label="Action" hflex="min"/>
                </listhead>
                <template name="model">
                    <listitem>
                        <listcell label="${forEachStatus.index + 1}" hflex="min"/>
                        <listcell label="${each.name}"/>
                        <listcell hflex="min">
                            <hlayout>
                                <button label="Edit" forward="onClick=listbox.onEdit(${each})" tooltiptext="Edit Data"/>
                            </hlayout>
                        </listcell>
                    </listitem>
                </template>
            </listbox>
        </vlayout>
    </window>
</zk>

Running the application and access it at localhost:8080 will give you a screen like the screenshot at the beginning of this post.

The complete source code can be found in the following GitHub repository kodejava-zk-search.

How do I delete entity object in JPA?

The following code example show you how to delete or remove entity object from database using JPA. The first class that we are going to create is ArtistDaoImpl which implements ArtistDao. This DAO class handles the delete process either by the entity ID or by the entity object itself. We define the delete process in deleteById(Long id) and delete(Artist artist) methods.

In those methods we call the EntityManager.remove() method. This method of EntityManager will take care of removing the entity object from our database. Let’s see the DAO code below:

package org.kodejava.jpa.dao;

import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import java.util.List;

public interface ArtistDao {
    Artist findById(Long id);

    void save(Artist artist);

    void update(Artist artist);

    List<Artist> getArtists();

    void deleteById(Long id);

    void delete(Artist artist);
}
package org.kodejava.jpa.dao.impl;

import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.ArtistDao;
import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.EntityNotFoundException;
import javax.persistence.Query;
import java.util.List;

public class ArtistDaoImpl implements ArtistDao {
    private final EntityManager manager;

    public ArtistDaoImpl(EntityManager manager) {
        this.manager = manager;
    }

    /**
     * Find Artist based on the entity id.
     *
     * @param artistId the artist id.
     * @return Artist.
     * @throws EntityNotFoundException when no artist is found.
     */
    public Artist findById(Long artistId) {
        Artist artist = manager.find(Artist.class, artistId);
        if (artist == null) {
            throw new EntityNotFoundException("Can't find Artist for ID "
                    + artistId);
        }
        return artist;
    }

    @Override
    public void save(Artist artist) {
        manager.getTransaction().begin();
        manager.persist(artist);
        manager.getTransaction().commit();
    }

    /**
     * Update Artist information.
     *
     * @param artist an Artist to be updated.
     */
    @Override
    public void update(Artist artist) {
        manager.getTransaction().begin();
        manager.merge(artist);
        manager.getTransaction().commit();
    }

    @Override
    @SuppressWarnings(value = "unchecked")
    public List<Artist> getArtists() {
        Query query = manager.createQuery("select a from Artist a", Artist.class);
        return query.getResultList();
    }

    /**
     * Delete artist by their id.
     *
     * @param id the artist id.
     */
    @Override
    public void deleteById(Long id) {
        Artist artist = manager.find(Artist.class, id);
        if (artist != null) {
            manager.getTransaction().begin();
            manager.remove(artist);
            manager.getTransaction().commit();
        }
    }

    /**
     * Delete artist entity.
     *
     * @param artist the object to be deleted.
     */
    @Override
    public void delete(Artist artist) {
        manager.getTransaction().begin();
        manager.remove(artist);
        manager.getTransaction().commit();
    }
}

After defining the delete methods in the ArtistDao class we create a simple program to demonstrate both of them. In this program we start by create the EntityManagerFactory object from the defined persistence unit in the persistence.xml file. Then we create the EntityManager object, and we pass it to our ArtistDaoImpl object. And then we call the delete methods to remove entity from the database.

To show you the result of the delete process we print out the artist data before and after the delete method is called.

package org.kodejava.jpa;

import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.ArtistDao;
import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.impl.ArtistDaoImpl;
import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.EntityManagerFactory;
import javax.persistence.Persistence;
import java.util.List;

public class EntityRemoveDemo {
    public static final String PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME = "music";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        EntityManagerFactory factory =
                Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME);
        EntityManager manager = factory.createEntityManager();

        ArtistDao dao = new ArtistDaoImpl(manager);
        System.out.println("Before Delete:");
        printArtists(dao.getArtists());

        // Remove artist with ID = 1.
        dao.deleteById(1L);

        // Remove artist with ID = 2.
        Artist artist = dao.findById(2L);
        dao.delete(artist);

        System.out.println("After Delete:");
        printArtists(dao.getArtists());
    }

    private static void printArtists(List<Artist> artists) {
        for (Artist artist : artists) {
            System.out.println("Artist = " + artist);
        }
    }
}

Here is the result of our code snippet. It shows the number of records before and after the delete process.

Before Delete:
Artist = Artist{id=1, name='Bon Jovi'}
Artist = Artist{id=2, name='Mr. Big'}
Artist = Artist{id=3, name='Metallica'}
After Delete:
Artist = Artist{id=3, name='Metallica'}

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.persistence</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.persistence-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
        <version>5.6.9.Final</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
        <artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
        <version>8.1.0</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I get the primary key of any JPA entity?

If you want to get the primary key of any JPA entity object you can use PersistenceUnitUtil.getIdentifier() method. This method take a single parameter which is the entity object whose identifier to be read. The PersistenceUnitUtil instance can be accessed from the EntityManagerFactory object.

If the entity object contains an identifier the getIdentifier() method will return the identifier as a java.lang.Object. If the entity object does not have an identifier ye it will return null.

package org.kodejava.jpa;

import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.EntityManagerFactory;
import javax.persistence.Persistence;

public class GetEntityIdDemo {
    public static final String PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME = "music";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        EntityManagerFactory factory =
                Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME);
        EntityManager manager = factory.createEntityManager();

        // Get object identifier of an exists entity.
        Artist artist = manager.find(Artist.class, 1L);
        if (artist != null) {
            Object identifier =
                    factory.getPersistenceUnitUtil().getIdentifier(artist);

            System.out.println("Identifier = " + identifier);
        }

        // Get object identifier of a newly inserted entity.
        Artist newArtist = new Artist();
        newArtist.setName("Bon Jovi");

        manager.getTransaction().begin();
        manager.persist(newArtist);
        manager.getTransaction().commit();

        Object identifier =
                factory.getPersistenceUnitUtil().getIdentifier(newArtist);
        System.out.println("Identifier = " + identifier);
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.persistence</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.persistence-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
        <version>5.6.9.Final</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
        <artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
        <version>8.1.0</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I update entity object using JPA?

In this example you will learn how to update an entity object in JPA. We use the EntityManager.merge() method to update an entity. This method takes the entity to be saved as the parameter and return the merged entity back as the result.

You can see a simple example to the code snippet below. Here is the main program for running the ArtistDao class to update the artist data in the database.

package org.kodejava.jpa;

import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.ArtistDao;
import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.impl.ArtistDaoImpl;
import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.EntityManagerFactory;
import javax.persistence.Persistence;

public class EntityUpdateDemo {
    public static final String PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME = "music";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        EntityManagerFactory factory =
                Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME);
        EntityManager em = factory.createEntityManager();

        ArtistDao dao = new ArtistDaoImpl(em);
        Artist artist = dao.findById(1L);
        System.out.println("Artist = " + artist);

        artist.setName("Bon Jovi");
        dao.update(artist);

        artist = dao.findById(artist.getId());
        System.out.println("Artist = " + artist);
    }
}

The ArtistDao interface and its implementation ArtistDaoImpl class definition.

package org.kodejava.jpa.dao;

import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import java.util.List;

public interface ArtistDao {
    Artist findById(Long id);

    void save(Artist artist);

    void update(Artist artist);

    List<Artist> getArtists();
}
package org.kodejava.jpa.dao.impl;

import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.ArtistDao;
import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.EntityNotFoundException;
import javax.persistence.Query;
import java.util.List;

public class ArtistDaoImpl implements ArtistDao {
    private final EntityManager manager;

    public ArtistDaoImpl(EntityManager manager) {
        this.manager = manager;
    }

    /**
     * Find Artist based on the entity id.
     *
     * @param artistId the artist id.
     * @return Artist.
     * @throws EntityNotFoundException when no artist is found.
     */
    public Artist findById(Long artistId) {
        Artist artist = manager.find(Artist.class, artistId);
        if (artist == null) {
            throw new EntityNotFoundException("Can't find Artist for ID "
                    + artistId);
        }
        return artist;
    }

    @Override
    public void save(Artist artist) {
        manager.getTransaction().begin();
        manager.persist(artist);
        manager.getTransaction().commit();
    }

    /**
     * Update Artist information.
     *
     * @param artist an Artist to be updated.
     */
    @Override
    public void update(Artist artist) {
        manager.getTransaction().begin();
        manager.merge(artist);
        manager.getTransaction().commit();
    }

    @Override
    @SuppressWarnings(value = "unchecked")
    public List<Artist> getArtists() {
        Query query = manager.createQuery("select a from Artist a", Artist.class);
        return query.getResultList();
    }
}

The persitence.xml file can be found on the following link: persistence.xml.

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.persistence</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.persistence-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
        <version>5.6.9.Final</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
        <artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
        <version>8.1.0</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I find entity by their ID in JPA?

In this example you will learn how to find an entity object by its ID using JPA. To find entity by their ID, we use the EntityManager.find() method and pass the entity class and the entity ID as the parameters.

In the code snippet below the EntityManager required by the ArtistDaoImpl will be passed from the main program when the DAO is instantiated. The process of finding the Artist entity is defined in the findById() method in the DAO class. You must pass the ID of the entity to this method.

The findById() method call the EntityManager.find() method to find the entity. If no entity was found, where the artist == null a javax.persistence.EntityNotFoundException will be thrown.

package org.kodejava.jpa.dao.impl;

import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.ArtistDao;
import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.EntityNotFoundException;
import javax.persistence.Query;
import java.util.List;

public class ArtistDaoImpl implements ArtistDao {
    private final EntityManager manager;

    public ArtistDaoImpl(EntityManager manager) {
        this.manager = manager;
    }

    /**
     * Find Artist based on the entity id.
     *
     * @param artistId the artist id.
     * @return Artist.
     * @throws EntityNotFoundException when no artist is found.
     */
    public Artist findById(Long artistId) {
        Artist artist = manager.find(Artist.class, artistId);
        if (artist == null) {
            throw new EntityNotFoundException("Can't find Artist for ID "
                    + artistId);
        }
        return artist;
    }

    @Override
    public void save(Artist artist) {
        manager.getTransaction().begin();
        manager.persist(artist);
        manager.getTransaction().commit();
    }

    @Override
    @SuppressWarnings(value = "unchecked")
    public List<Artist> getArtists() {
        Query query = manager.createQuery("select a from Artist a", Artist.class);
        return query.getResultList();
    }
}

To run the DAO class we create a main program in the code snippet below. The steps are creating the EntityManagerFactory configured in your persistence.xml file. Create the EntityManager using the factory object. Create the DAO and pass the EntityManager to it. And finally call the findById() method of the DAO class.

package org.kodejava.jpa;

import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.ArtistDao;
import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.impl.ArtistDaoImpl;
import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.EntityManagerFactory;
import javax.persistence.EntityNotFoundException;
import javax.persistence.Persistence;

public class FindEntityByIdDemo {
    public static final String PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME = "music";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        EntityManagerFactory factory =
                Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME);
        EntityManager em = factory.createEntityManager();

        ArtistDao dao = new ArtistDaoImpl(em);

        // Find an artist with ID = 1 from the database. The entity is
        // exists in the database.
        Artist artist = dao.findById(1L);
        System.out.println("Artist = " + artist);

        try {
            // Find an entity that is not exists in the database will
            // throw an exception.
            artist = dao.findById(100L);
            System.out.println("Artist = " + artist);
        } catch (EntityNotFoundException e) {
            System.out.println(e.getMessage());
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.persistence</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.persistence-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
        <version>5.6.9.Final</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
        <artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
        <version>8.1.0</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I persist entity to database in JPA?

In this example you are going to learn how to persist or save an entity object to database table using JPA. We are going to create a data access object (DAO) for persisting an Artist entity.

We create a class called ArtistDaoImpl with a constructor that accept an EntityManager parameter. We provide a couple methods in this DAO such as the save() and getArtist() methods. These methods are for persisting the entity and retrieve a collection of entities from the database.

To persist object to database we call the EntityManager.persist() method with the entity object to be saved as the parameter. We also have to begin and commit the transaction before and after we call the persist() method. Here is the code for our DAO and its implementation.

package org.kodejava.jpa.dao;

import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import java.util.List;

public interface ArtistDao {
    Artist findById(Long id);

    void save(Artist artist);

    List<Artist> getArtists();
}
package org.kodejava.jpa.dao.impl;

import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.ArtistDao;
import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.Query;
import java.util.List;

public class ArtistDaoImpl implements ArtistDao {
    private final EntityManager manager;

    public ArtistDaoImpl(EntityManager manager) {
        this.manager = manager;
    }

    @Override
    public Artist findById(Long id) {
        return manager.find(Artist.class, id);
    }

    @Override
    public void save(Artist artist) {
        manager.getTransaction().begin();
        manager.persist(artist);
        manager.getTransaction().commit();
    }

    @Override
    @SuppressWarnings(value = "unchecked")
    public List<Artist> getArtists() {
        Query query = manager.createQuery("select a from Artist a", Artist.class);
        return query.getResultList();
    }
}

To demonstrate the DAO we create a simple program as you can see below. The program start by creating the EntityManagerFactory configured by the persistence unit defined in the persistence.xml file. From the factory object we create the EntityManager object which will be passed to the ArtistDaoImpl.

After create an instance of the ArtistDao we insert some artist record to database by calling the dao.save() method. To check that the data successfully stored in the database we call the dao.getArtists() to read the data back from the database and print it out to the screen.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<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"
             version="2.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence">

    <persistence-unit name="music" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
        <class>org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist</class>
        <properties>
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.driver" value="com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver" />
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.url" value="jdbc:mysql://localhost/musicdb" />
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.user" value="music" />
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.password" value="s3cr*t" />
            <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect" />
            <property name="hibernate.show_sql" value="true" />
            <property name="hibernate.format_sql" value="true" />
            <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="update" />
        </properties>
    </persistence-unit>

</persistence>
package org.kodejava.jpa;

import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.ArtistDao;
import org.kodejava.jpa.dao.impl.ArtistDaoImpl;
import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.EntityManagerFactory;
import javax.persistence.Persistence;
import java.util.List;

public class EntityPersistDemo {
    public static final String PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME = "music";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        EntityManagerFactory factory =
                Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME);
        EntityManager manager = factory.createEntityManager();

        String[] artistNames = {"Bryan Adams", "Mr. Big", "Metallica"};

        ArtistDao dao = new ArtistDaoImpl(manager);

        for (String name : artistNames) {
            Artist artist = new Artist();
            artist.setName(name);
            dao.save(artist);
        }

        List<Artist> artistList = dao.getArtists();
        for (Artist artist : artistList) {
            System.out.println("artist = " + artist);
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.persistence</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.persistence-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
        <version>5.6.9.Final</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
        <artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
        <version>8.1.0</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I create JPA EntityManagerFactory?

In this code snippet you will learn how to create JPA EntityManagerFactory. This factory enable you to create the EntityManager which will be used to execute the JPA command to manipulate the database tables.

To create the EntityManagerFactory you need to create to persistence.xml file first. The file is where you configure the JPA. This file must be placed inside the META-INF directory in your program working directory.

Here is an example of the persistence.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<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"
             version="2.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence">

    <persistence-unit name="music" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
        <class>org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist</class>
        <class>org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Genre</class>
        <class>org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Label</class>
        <class>org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Record</class>
        <class>org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Review</class>
        <class>org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Reviewer</class>
        <class>org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Track</class>
        <properties>
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.driver" value="com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver" />
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.url" value="jdbc:mysql://localhost/musicdb" />
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.user" value="music" />
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.password" value="s3cr*t" />
            <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect" />
            <property name="hibernate.show_sql" value="true" />
            <property name="hibernate.format_sql" value="true" />
            <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="update" />
        </properties>
    </persistence-unit>

</persistence>

The persistence unit defined in the persistence.xml file contains a set of entities object. We also define some properties related to the database connections including the JDBC driver class, JDBC url, the username and password for opening the connection to database.

After defining the persistence.xml file we’ll create a simple program to create the EntityManagerFactory. To create the factory we can use the javax.persistence.Persistence class createEntityManagerFactory() method and pass the persistence unit name as the parameter. In this example the persistence unit name is music as can be seen in the persistence.xml file.

After we have the factory object created we can then create an EntityManager by calling the createEntityManager() of the factory object. Let’s see the code snippet below.

package org.kodejava.jpa;

import org.kodejava.jpa.entity.Artist;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.EntityManagerFactory;
import javax.persistence.Persistence;

public class EntityManagerFactoryExample {
    public static final String PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME = "music";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        EntityManagerFactory factory =
                Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME);
        EntityManager manager = factory.createEntityManager();

        // Do something with the entity manager.
        Artist artist = manager.find(Artist.class, 1L);
        System.out.println("artist = " + artist);
    }
}

The Artist entity class definition.

package org.kodejava.jpa.entity;

import javax.persistence.*;
import java.io.Serial;
import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.Objects;

@Entity
@Table(name = "artist")
public class Artist implements Serializable {
    @Serial
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    private Long id;
    private String name;

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    public Long getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(Long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    @Column(name = "name", length = 100, nullable = false)
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object o) {
        if (this == o) return true;
        if (o == null || getClass() != o.getClass()) return false;
        Artist artist = (Artist) o;
        return Objects.equals(id, artist.id) &&
                Objects.equals(name, artist.name);
    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode() {
        return Objects.hash(id, name);
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Artist{" +
                "id=" + id +
                ", name='" + name + '\'' +
                '}';
    }
}

Our project directory structure.

├─ pom.xml
└─ src
   └─ main
      ├─ java
      │  └─ org
      │     └─ kodejava
      │        └─ jpa
      │           ├─ EntityManagerFactoryExample.java
      │           └─ entity
      │              ├─ Artist.java
      │              ├─ Genre.java
      │              ├─ Label.java
      │              ├─ Record.java
      │              ├─ Review.java
      │              ├─ Reviewer.java
      │              └─ Track.java
      └─ resources
         └─ META-INF
            └─ persistence.xml

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.persistence</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.persistence-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
        <version>5.6.9.Final</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
        <artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
        <version>8.1.0</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I create entity object in JPA?

This example show you a simple example of an entity object used for mapping database table into Java object. The entity is a Plain Old Java Object (POJO). The JPA specification doesn’t mandate the class to extends or implements other class or interfaces.

A class which going to be persisted in a database must be annotated with the javax.persistence.Entity annotation (@Entity). As you can see in the Record class below.

By default, the mapped table name equals to the class name. But if your table name is different to your class name you can use the @Table annotation. Set the table name using the name attribute of this annotation. This annotation is also located in the javax.persistence package.

package org.kodejava.jpa.entity;

import javax.persistence.*;
import java.io.Serializable;

@Entity
@Table(name = "record")
public class Record implements Serializable {
}

In JPA metadata can be added either in the class fields or using the getters or setters methods. Choose one option because you cannot mix both of them in the same entity object. Here we will annotate the getters of the class.

To define the primary key of the entity we use the @Id annotation. The @GeneratedValue annotation is used to define how the primary key of the entity should be generated. For example in this example the strategy is defined as GenerationType.IDENTITY. In MySQL database this is implemented as an auto-increment column.

@Id
@GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
public Long getId() {
    return id;
}

public void setId(Long id) {
    this.id = id;
}

The fields of the entity by default will be persisted into corresponding fields in the database table. If you don’t want the entity fields to be persisted you must add the @Transient annotation to it. If your entity field name is different with table field you can use the @Column annotation to define the column name and other attributes of the column such as the length, the uniqueness of the field and the not-null attribute.

To define relationship between entity object you can use annotation such as @OneToOne, @OneToMany, @ManyToOne and @ManyToMany. This annotation represent the relationship between database tables in the Java objects.

@Column(nullable = false, length = 50)
public String getTitle() {
    return title;
}

@Column(name = "release_date")
public Date getReleaseDate() {
    return releaseDate;
}

@ManyToOne
@JoinColumn(nullable = false)
public Artist getArtist() {
    return artist;
}

Below is the complete class for the Record entity. This will hold information about music record. This entity has relationship with other entity such the Artist and Label entity.

package org.kodejava.jpa.entity;

import javax.persistence.*;
import java.io.Serial;
import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Objects;

@Entity
@Table(name = "record")
public class Record implements Serializable {
    @Serial
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    private Long id;
    private String title;
    private Date releaseDate;
    private Artist artist;
    private Label label;

    private List<Track> trackList = new ArrayList<>();

    public Record() {
    }

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    public Long getId() {
        return id;
    }

    @Column(nullable = false, length = 50)
    public String getTitle() {
        return title;
    }

    @Column(name = "release_date")
    public Date getReleaseDate() {
        return releaseDate;
    }

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(nullable = false)
    public Artist getArtist() {
        return artist;
    }

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(nullable = false)
    public Label getLabel() {
        return label;
    }

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "record")
    public List<Track> getTrackList() {
        return trackList;
    }

    public void setId(Long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public void setTitle(String title) {
        this.title = title;
    }

    public void setReleaseDate(Date releaseDate) {
        this.releaseDate = releaseDate;
    }

    public void setArtist(Artist artist) {
        this.artist = artist;
    }

    public void setLabel(Label label) {
        this.label = label;
    }

    public void setTrackList(List<Track> trackList) {
        this.trackList = trackList;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object o) {
        if (this == o) return true;
        if (o == null || getClass() != o.getClass()) return false;
        Record record = (Record) o;
        return Objects.equals(id, record.id) &&
                Objects.equals(title, record.title) &&
                Objects.equals(releaseDate, record.releaseDate);
    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode() {
        return Objects.hash(id, title, releaseDate);
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Record{" +
                "id=" + id +
                ", title='" + title + '\'' +
                ", releaseDate=" + releaseDate +
                '}';
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.persistence</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.persistence-api</artifactId>
    <version>2.2</version>
</dependency>

Maven Central

What is JPA (Java Persistence API)?

JPA is a Java specification for object-relational mapping (ORM) in Java. JPA provide a way to map Java objects to database tables. This allows programmers to manipulate database information directly using Java objects instead of executing database SQL queries.

Developer can choose one of many available JPA specification implementation libraries such as Hibernate, Apache OpenJPA and EclipseLink. EclipseLink is the reference implementation of the JPA specification. In the examples that we are going to provide you in this website, Hibernate library will be used as the persistence provider.

In JPA we model our database tables into a Java objects. This Java objects also called as entity objects. The entity represent a table in database. A single row in a database table will be represented in an instance of the entity. This entity objects hold information about the mapping between objects and database tables. This information or metadata can be defined using an annotation or an XML mapping files.

Here is a simple example of entity object and its metadata information.

package org.kodejava.jpa.entity;

import javax.persistence.*;
import java.io.Serial;
import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.Objects;

@Entity
@Table(name = "genre")
public class Genre implements Serializable {
    @Serial
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    private Long id;
    private String name;

    public Genre() {
    }

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    public Long getId() {
        return id;
    }

    @Column(nullable = false, length = 50)
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setId(Long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object o) {
        if (this == o) return true;
        if (o == null || getClass() != o.getClass()) return false;
        Genre genre = (Genre) o;
        return Objects.equals(id, genre.id) &&
                Objects.equals(name, genre.name);
    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode() {
        return Objects.hash(id, name);
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Genre{" +
                "id=" + id +
                ", name='" + name + '\'' +
                '}';
    }
}

In the entity above we use annotation such as @Entity, @Table, @Id, @GeneratedValue and @Column. These are some annotations that you can use for object mapping.

Beside manipulating database tables using objects, JPA also provide a SQL-like queries that can be used to create a static or dynamic query statement.

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.persistence</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.persistence-api</artifactId>
    <version>2.2</version>
</dependency>

Maven Central