What s Covered in This Chapter

What's Covered in This Chapter

In this chapter, we develop the classes we need to implement functionality for the first five user stories (page 63) for our sample application, Time Expression. So, we will do the following:

• Understand what object-relational mapping technology is and the benefits it offers.

• Install HSQLDB, a Java-based, lightweight relational database.

• Design our database.

• Write a Data Definition Language (DDL) script to create our database tables using Ant and test out some sample queries.

• Set up Hibernate, understand its basic concepts, and begin working with it.

• Demonstrate a simple and then a slightly more complex example (along with a corresponding unit test suite class) of using Hibernate for Time Expression's Department and Timesheet tables.

• Discuss advanced Hibernate areas for you to explore (should you need them).

Note

The complete code for the examples used in this chapter can be found within this book's code zip file (available on the book's website).

We will cover a lot of material in this chapter, so let's get started.