Generate JPA 2 Entities from existing Database

Question

How can I generate JPA2 compliant @Entity from existing Databases?.

I found this: Question

Still its not clear if JBoss will generate compliant JPA2 and also I would like to know if there is a vendor independent way to do this.

Answer 1

You can use a plugin like Eclipse Dali to do the trick for you. You can refer to the documentation, section 3.11 Generating Entities from Tables.

I do not know of any specific vendor independent tool to do this, though.

Answer 2

Try using OPENJPA Reverse mapping tools. They offer lot more facility and are easy to configure. This example would clarify.

If you are using maven as your build tool, add this entry to your pom.xml

    <plugin> <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId> <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId> <version>1.2</version> <configuration> <mainClass>org.apache.openjpa.jdbc.meta.ReverseMappingTool</mainClass> <commandlineArgs>     -directory src/main/java -accessType fields     -useGenericCollections true -package org.yourproject.model     -metadata none -annotations true     -innerIdentityClasses false -useBuiltinIdentityClass false     -primaryKeyOnJoin false     </commandlineArgs> <includePluginDependencies>true</includePluginDependencies> </configuration> <dependencies>     <dependency>         <groupId>javax.validation</groupId>         <artifactId>validation-api</artifactId>         <version>1.0.CR3</version>     </dependency>     <dependency>         <groupId>org.apache.openjpa</groupId>         <artifactId>openjpa-all</artifactId>         <version>2.0.1</version>     </dependency> </dependencies>     </plugin> 

Also add following properties in the persistence.xml which lies in your META-INF folder of your resources. These would be harnessed by openjpa tool to establish connection to the database.

    <properties> <property name="openjpa.ConnectionUserName" value="${db.username}"/> <property name="openjpa.ConnectionPassword" value="${db.password}"/> <property name="openjpa.ConnectionURL" value="${db.url}"/>   <property name="openjpa.ConnectionDriverName"  value="${db.driver.class}"/>         </properties> 

To generate the Entity files simply launch the maven goal in the project directory using mvn org.codehaus.mojo:exec-maven-plugin:java and it will generate the files at the desired location.