What is Hibernate Caching?How many Types of Caching in Hibernate.?

Hibernate Caching Mechanism and Types

High-volume database traffic is a frequent cause of performance problems in Web applications. Hibernate is a high-performance, object/relational persistence and query service, but it won't solve all your performance issues without a little help. In many cases, second-level caching can be just what Hibernate needs to realize its full performance-handling potential. This article examines Hibernate's caching functionalities and shows how you can use them to significantly boost application performance.

An Introduction to Caching

Caching is widely used for optimizing database applications. A cache is designed to reduce traffic between your application and the database by conserving data already loaded from the database. Database access is necessary only when retrieving data that is not currently available in the cache. The application may need to empty (invalidate) the cache from time to time if the database is updated or modified in some way, because it has no way of knowing whether the cache is up to date.

Hibernate Caching

Hibernate uses two different caches for objects:

first-level cache and second-level cache.

First-level cache is associated with the Session object, while second-level cache is associated with the Session Factory object. By default, Hibernate uses first-level cache on a per-transaction basis. Hibernate uses this cache mainly to reduce the number of SQL queries it needs to generate within a given transaction.

For example, if an object is modified several times within the same transaction, Hibernate will generate only one SQL UPDATE statement at the end of the transaction, containing all the modifications. This article focuses on second-level cache. To reduce database traffic, second-level cache keeps loaded objects at the Session Factory level between transactions.

These objects are available to the whole application, not just to the user running the query. This way, each time a query returns an object that is already loaded in the cache, one or more database transactions potentially are avoided.

In addition, you can use a query-level cache if you need to cache actual query results, rather than just persistent objects.

Cache Implementations

Caches are complicated pieces of software, and the market offers quite a number of choices, both open source and commercial. Hibernate supports the following open-source cache implementations out-of-the-box:

EHCache -EasyHibernateCache(org.hibernate.cache.EhCacheProvider)

OSCache-OpenSymphonyCache (org.hibernate.cache.OSCacheProvider)

SwarmCache-SwarmCache (org.hibernate.cache.SwarmCacheProvider)

JBoss TreeCache-JBossTreeCache (org.hibernate.cache.TreeCacheProvider)

Each cache provides different capacities in terms of performance, memory use, and configuration possibilities:

EHCache is a fast, lightweight, and easy-to-use in-process cache.
It supports read-only and read/write caching, and memory- and disk-based caching.
However, it does not support clustering.

OSCache is another open-source caching solution. It is part of a larger package, which also provides caching functionalities for JSP pages or arbitrary objects. It is a powerful and flexible package, which, like EHCache, supports read-only and read/write caching, and memory- and disk-based caching. It also provides basic support for clustering via either JavaGroups or JMS.

SwarmCache is a simple cluster-based caching solution based on JavaGroups. It supports read-only or nonstrict read/write caching (the next section explains this term). This type of cache is appropriate for applications that typically have many more read operations than write operations.

JBoss TreeCache is a powerful replicated (synchronous or asynchronous) and transactional cache. Use this solution if you really need a true transaction-capable caching architecture.
Another cache implementation worth mentioning is the commercial Tangosol Coherence cache.

Caching Strategies

Once you have chosen your cache implementation, you need to specify your access strategies. The following four caching strategies are available:

Read-only: This strategy is useful for data that is read frequently but never updated. This is by far the simplest and best-performing cache strategy.

Read/write: Read/write caches may be appropriate if your data needs to be updated. They carry more overhead than read-only caches. In non-JTA environments, each transaction should be completed when Session.close() or Session.disconnect() is called.

Nonstrict read/write: This strategy does not guarantee that two transactions won't simultaneously modify the same data. Therefore, it may be most appropriate for data that is read often but only occasionally modified.
Transactional: This is a fully transactional cache that may be used only in a JTA environment.

Support for these strategies is not identical for every cache implementation. Table 1 shows the options available for the different cache implementations.

Cache	Read-only	Nonstrict Read/write	Read/write	Transactional
EHCache	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
OSCache	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
SwarmCache	Yes	Yes	No	No
JBoss TreeCache	Yes	No	No	Yes

Table 1. Supported Caching Strategies for Hibernate Out-of-the-Box Cache Implementations

Setting Up a Read-Only Cache

To begin with something simple, here's the Hibernate mapping for the Country class:


<hibernate-mapping package="com.wakaleo.articles.caching.businessobjects">
<class name="Country" table="COUNTRY" dynamic-update="true">
<meta attribute="implement-equals">true</meta>
<cache usage="read-only"/>
<id name="id" type="long" unsaved-value="null" >
<column name="cn_id" not-null="true"/>
<generator class="increment"/>
</id>
<property column="cn_code" name="code" type="string"/>
<property column="cn_name" name="name" type="string"/>
<set name="airports">
<key column="cn_id"/>
<one-to-many class="Airport"/>
</set>
</class>
</hibernate-mapping>

Read More

Hibernate Interview Questions (Part 3)

Hibernate Interview Questions Part 3


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 SessionFactory? 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.

What are Collection types in Hibernate?

 ArrayType,
Constructor: ArrayType(String role, String propertyRef, Class elementClass, boolean isEmbeddedInXML)
 BagType,
Constructor: BagType(String role, String propertyRef, boolean isEmbeddedInXML)
 CustomCollectionType, A custom type for mapping user-written classes that implement PersistentCollection
Constructor: CustomCollectionType(Class userTypeClass, String role, String foreignKeyPropertyName, boolean isEmbeddedInXML)
 IdentifierBagType,
Constructor: IdentifierBagType(String role, String propertyRef, boolean isEmbeddedInXML)
 ListType,
Constructor: ListType(String role, String propertyRef, boolean isEmbeddedInXML)
 MapType,
Constructor: MapType(String role, String propertyRef, boolean isEmbeddedInXML)
 SetType
Constructor: SetType(String role, String propertyRef, boolean isEmbeddedInXML)

Read More

Hibernate Interview Questions (part 2)

Hibernate Interview Questions Part 2.


Q) What are the most common methods of Hibernate configuration?

A) The most common methods of Hibernate configuration are:
* Programmatic configuration
* XML configuration (hibernate.cfg.xml)

Q) What are the important tags of hibernate.cfg.xml?

A) 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.

Q) What are the Core interfaces are of Hibernate framework?

A) People who read this also read:
The five core interfaces are used in just about every Hibernate application. Using these interfaces, you can store and retrieve persistent objects and control transactions.
* Session interface
* SessionFactory interface
* Configuration interface
* Transaction interface
* Query and Criteria interfaces

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

A) 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

Q) What role does the SessionFactory interface play in Hibernate?

A) 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();

Q) What is the general flow of Hibernate communication with RDBMS?

A) 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

Q) What is Hibernate Query Language (HQL)?

A) 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.

Q) How do you map Java Objects with Database tables?

A)
* 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.


Q) What Does Hibernate Simplify?

A) 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

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

A) load() vs. get()
load() :-
Only use the load() method if you are sure that the object exists.
load() method will throw an exception if the 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 invoked.
get():-
If you are not sure that the object exists, then use one of the get() methods.
get() method will return null if the unique id is not found in the database.
get() will hit the database immediately.

Q) What is the difference between and merge and update ?

A)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.

Q) How do you define sequence generated primary key in hibernate?

A) Using tag.
Example:-

SEQUENCE_NAME

Q) Define cascade and inverse option in one-many mapping?

A) 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?

Q) What does it mean to be inverse?

A) It informs hibernate to ignore that end of the relationship. If the one–to–many was marked as inverse, hibernate would create a child–>parent relationship (child.getParent). If the one–to–many was marked as non–inverse then a child–>parent relationship would be created.

Q) What do you mean by Named – SQL query?

A) Named SQL queries are defined in the mapping xml document and called wherever required.
Example:


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

Invoke Named Query :
List people = session.getNamedQuery(“empdetails”).setString(“TomBrady”, name).setMaxResults(50).list();

Q) How do you invoke Stored Procedures?

A) { ? = call selectAllEmployees() }

Q) Explain Criteria API?

A) 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();

Q) Define HibernateTemplate?

A) 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.

Q) What are the benefits does HibernateTemplate provide?

A) 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.

Q) How do you switch between relational databases without code changes?

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

Q) If you want to see the Hibernate generated SQL statements on console, what should we do?

A) In Hibernate configuration file set as follows:
true

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 element.
People who read this also read:
Core Java Questions
Spring Questions
SCJP 6.0 Certification
EJB Interview Questions
Servlets Questions

Q) What is component mapping in Hibernate?

A)
* 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

Q) What is the difference between sorted and ordered collection in hibernate?

A) sorted collection vs. order collection
sorted collection :-
A sorted collection is sorting a collection by utilizing the sorting features provided by the Java collections framework. The sorting occurs in the memory of JVM which running Hibernate, after the data being read from database using java comparator.
If your collection is not large, it will be more efficient way to sort it.
order collection :-
Order collection is sorting a collection by specifying the order-by clause for sorting this collection when retrieval.
If your collection is very large, it will be more efficient way to sort it .

Read More

Hibernate Interview Questions (Part1)

Hibernate Interview Questions


1) Explain about Hibernate?

Hibernate solves problems such as Object Relational impedance mismatch, etc. It is commonly used for object and query service. It helps data base developers develop classes which include inheritance, association, composition and polymorphism. A developer or user can express queries either in HQL or SQL.

2) Explain about the primary feature of Hibernate?

Primary feature of hibernate is to java classes to database tables. Data query and retrieval is also possible with Hibernate. Application portability is a key feature in Hibernate it allows developers to port applications to almost all SQL databases.

3) Explain about transparent persistence of Hibernate?

Transparent persistence is provided for Plain old Java objects or POJOs. For proper functioning of the applications importance should be given to the methods equals () and hash Code methods (). It has a requirement which should be strictly followed in the applications which is a no-argument constructor.

4) Explain about the dirty checking feature of Hibernate?

Dirty checking feature of the Hibernate allows users or developers to avoid time consuming data base write actions. This feature makes necessary updations and changes to the fields which require a change, remaining fields are left unchanged or untouched.

5) Brief about the Session factory interface?

It creates new hibernate sessions by referencing immutable and thread safe objects. Application using hibernate are usually allowed and desgined to implement single instance of the class using this interface. Only single instance of a class can be used which is using this interface.

6) Explain about session interface?

This represents hibernate session which perform the manipulation on the database entities. Some of the activities performed by session interface are as follows they are managing the persistence state, fetching persisted ones and management of the transaction demarcation.

7) Explain the steps involved in creating database applications with Java using Hibernate?

Creating Database applications with Java is made simpler with Hibernate. First Plain old java object needs to be written, XML mapping file should be created which shows relationship between database and class attributes. Hibernate APIs can be used to store persistent objects.

8) Explain about hibernate.cfg.xml?

Hibernate can be configured with two types of files out of which hibernate.cfg.xml is widely used and popular feature. Hibernate consults hibernate.cfg.xml file for its operating properties such as database dialect, connection string and mapping files. These files are searched on class path.

9) Explain about mapping description file?

Mapping description file is the second file which Hibernate uses to configure its functions. This mapping file has an extension *.hbm which instructs mapping between Java class and database tables. The usage of mapping description file rests entirely upon the business entity.

10) Explain about transaction file?

Transactions denote a work file which can save changes made or revert back the changes. A transaction can be started by session.beginTransaction() and it uses JDBC connection, CORBA or JTA. When this session starts several transactions may occur.

11) Explain about mapping files in Hibernate?

Mapping files forms the core of any database mapping tools. These files contain field to field mapping, usually this mapping occurs between classes and attributes. After mapping files they can be persist to the database. Tags can be used to indicate the presence of a primary key.

12) What is the effect when a transient mapped object is passed onto a Sessions save?

When a Sessions save () is passed to a transient mapped object it makes the method to become more persistent. Garbage collection and termination of the Java virtual machine stays as long as it is deleted explicitly. It may head back to its transient state.

13) Explain about version field?

Application level data integrity constants are important if you are making changes to offline information which is again backed by database. Higher level locking or versioning protocol is required to support them. Version field usage comes at this stage but the design and implementation process is left to the developer.

14) State some advantages of hibernate?

Some of the advantages which a developer can get from Hibernate are as follows: -
Mapping of one POJO table to one table is not required in hibernate.
It supports inheritance relationships and is generally a fast tool. Portability is necessary the greater benefit from hibernate. POJOs can be used in other applications where they are applicable.

15) Explain about addClass function?

This function translates a Java class name into file name. This translated file name is then loaded as an input stream from the Java class loader. This addclass function is important if you want efficient usage of classes in your code.

16) Explain about addjar() and addDirectory() methods?

These methods are the most convenient to use in hibernate. These methods allow you to load all your Hibernate documents at a time. These methods simplify code configuration, refactoring, layout, etc. These functions help you to add your hibernate mapping to Hibernate initialization files.

17) Explain about the id field?

This id field corresponds to the surrogate key which is generated by the database. These fields are handled by the id field. Name attribute is used to specify the names of the field and it should correspond to the method name of getid. This also should correspond to long type and the values should be stored I the database in the long column.

Read More

Java Persistence with Hibernate Gavin king and Christian Bauer

brief contents
PART 1 GETTING STARTED WITH HIBERNATE AND EJB 3.0 .........1
1 ■ Understanding object/relational persistence 3
2 ■ Starting a project 37
3 ■ Domain models and metadata 105
PART 2 MAPPING CONCEPTS AND STRATEGIES ........................155
4 ■ Mapping persistent classes 157
5 ■ Inheritance and custom types 191
6 ■ Mapping collections and entity associations 240
7 ■ Advanced entity association mappings 277
8 ■ Legacy databases and custom SQL 322
PART 3 CONVERSATIONAL OBJECT PROCESSING .....................381
9 ■ Working with objects 383
10 ■ Transactions and concurrency 433
11 ■ Implementing conversations 476
12 ■ Modifying objects efficiently 517
vi BRIEF CONTENTS
13 ■ Optimizing fetching and caching 559
14 ■ Querying with HQL and JPA QL 614
15 ■ Advanced query options 663
16 ■ Creating and testing layered applications 697
17 ■ Introducing JBoss Seam 747
appendix A SQL fundamentals 818
appendix B Mapping quick reference 822

DOWNLOAD

Read More