MyBatis performance - access mappers

Question

I'm using MyBatis in a project that fetches many rows (more than 2M rows).

I have a simple question about how MyBatis works. Everytime I need an action from the mapper, does MyBatis read the XML file and extract the query? Or are the mappers put into memory and MyBatis access them directly?

This is important, because access and read a XML file can have impact on the performance values we are expecting.

Thanks in advance. Regards

Answer 1

Shortly, MyBatis parses the XML file when you first build your SqlSessionFactory from the configuration XML file. All the properties, mappers and settings are stored in-memory after that.

Explanation: As stated in the doc, you can set up your SqlSessionFactory without XML, directly in Java as follows (see, last line):

DataSource dataSource = BlogDataSourceFactory.getBlogDataSource();
TransactionFactory transactionFactory = new JdbcTransactionFactory();
Environment environment = new Environment("development", transactionFactory, dataSource);
Configuration configuration = new Configuration(environment);
configuration.addMapper(BlogMapper.class);
SqlSessionFactory sqlSessionFactory = new SqlSessionFactoryBuilder().build(configuration);

Actually, when you build your SqlSessionFactory from XML, you will write something like this:

String resource = "org/mybatis/example/mybatis-config.xml";
InputStream inputStream = Resources.getResourceAsStream(resource);
SqlSessionFactory sqlSessionFactory = new SqlSessionFactoryBuilder().build(inputStream);

If you trace the source in SqlSessionFactoryBuilder,

  public SqlSessionFactory build(Reader reader, String environment, Properties properties) {
    try {
      XMLConfigBuilder parser = new XMLConfigBuilder(reader, environment, properties);
      return build(parser.parse());
 ...

The parse() method returns Configuration object, which holds all the information you supplied in the XML file.

public class Configuration {

  protected Environment environment;

  protected boolean safeRowBoundsEnabled = false;
  protected boolean safeResultHandlerEnabled = true;
  protected boolean mapUnderscoreToCamelCase = false;
  protected boolean aggressiveLazyLoading = true;
  protected boolean multipleResultSetsEnabled = true;
  protected boolean useGeneratedKeys = false;
  protected boolean useColumnLabel = true;
  protected boolean cacheEnabled = true;
  protected boolean callSettersOnNulls = false;
  protected String logPrefix;
  protected Class <? extends Log> logImpl;
  protected LocalCacheScope localCacheScope = LocalCacheScope.SESSION;
  protected JdbcType jdbcTypeForNull = JdbcType.OTHER;
  protected Set<String> lazyLoadTriggerMethods = new HashSet<String>(Arrays.asList(new String[] { "equals", "clone", "hashCode", "toString" }));
  protected Integer defaultStatementTimeout;
  protected ExecutorType defaultExecutorType = ExecutorType.SIMPLE;
  protected AutoMappingBehavior autoMappingBehavior = AutoMappingBehavior.PARTIAL;

  protected Properties variables = new Properties();
  protected ObjectFactory objectFactory = new DefaultObjectFactory();
  protected ObjectWrapperFactory objectWrapperFactory = new DefaultObjectWrapperFactory();
  protected MapperRegistry mapperRegistry = new MapperRegistry(this);

  protected boolean lazyLoadingEnabled = false;
  protected ProxyFactory proxyFactory;

  protected String databaseId;
  /**
   * Configuration factory class.
   * Used to create Configuration for loading deserialized unread properties.
   *
   * @see <a href='https://code.google.com/p/mybatis/issues/detail?id=300'>Issue 300</a> (google code)
   */
  protected Class<?> configurationFactory;

  protected final InterceptorChain interceptorChain = new InterceptorChain();
  protected final TypeHandlerRegistry typeHandlerRegistry = new TypeHandlerRegistry();
  protected final TypeAliasRegistry typeAliasRegistry = new TypeAliasRegistry();
  protected final LanguageDriverRegistry languageRegistry = new LanguageDriverRegistry();

  protected final Map<String, MappedStatement> mappedStatements = new StrictMap<MappedStatement>("Mapped Statements collection");
  protected final Map<String, Cache> caches = new StrictMap<Cache>("Caches collection");
  protected final Map<String, ResultMap> resultMaps = new StrictMap<ResultMap>("Result Maps collection");
  protected final Map<String, ParameterMap> parameterMaps = new StrictMap<ParameterMap>("Parameter Maps collection");
  protected final Map<String, KeyGenerator> keyGenerators = new StrictMap<KeyGenerator>("Key Generators collection");

  protected final Set<String> loadedResources = new HashSet<String>();
  protected final Map<String, XNode> sqlFragments = new StrictMap<XNode>("XML fragments parsed from previous mappers");

  protected final Collection<XMLStatementBuilder> incompleteStatements = new LinkedList<XMLStatementBuilder>();
  protected final Collection<CacheRefResolver> incompleteCacheRefs = new LinkedList<CacheRefResolver>();
  protected final Collection<ResultMapResolver> incompleteResultMaps = new LinkedList<ResultMapResolver>();
  protected final Collection<MethodResolver> incompleteMethods = new LinkedList<MethodResolver>();
...