Programming Tutorials

Step by Step Hibernate - Your First Hibernate Application

By: Felix in Hibernate Tutorials on 2023-05-08  

Here are the steps to create a simple Hibernate application:

1. Create a new Java project in your IDE of choice, and add the Hibernate libraries to your classpath. You can download the latest version of Hibernate from the official website.

2. Create a new Hibernate configuration file (hibernate.cfg.xml) in the root of your project, and set up the database connection details. For example:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD//EN"
           "http://www.hibernate.org/dtd/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
   <hibernate-configuration>
     <session-factory>
       <property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class">com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</property>
       <property name="hibernate.connection.url">jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mydatabase</property>
       <property name="hibernate.connection.username">root</property>
       <property name="hibernate.connection.password">password</property>
       <property name="hibernate.dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</property>
       <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto">update</property>
     </session-factory>
   </hibernate-configuration>

   Replace the database connection details with your own.

3. Create a new Java class to represent a table in your database. This class should have a no-argument constructor and getter and setter methods for each property. For example:

   @Entity
   @Table(name = "users")
   public class User {
       @Id
       @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
       private Long id;
   
       @Column(name = "username")
       private String username;
   
       @Column(name = "email")
       private String email;
   
       // no-argument constructor
       public User() {}
   
       // getter and setter methods
       public Long getId() { return id; }
       public void setId(Long id) { this.id = id; }
       public String getUsername() { return username; }
       public void setUsername(String username) { this.username = username; }
       public String getEmail() { return email; }
       public void setEmail(String email) { this.email = email; }
   }
   

4. Create a new Hibernate session factory object, using the configuration file you created in step 2. For example:

   Configuration cfg = new Configuration();
   cfg.configure("hibernate.cfg.xml");
   SessionFactory sessionFactory = cfg.buildSessionFactory();
   

5. Open a new Hibernate session using the session factory. For example:

   Session session = sessionFactory.openSession();
   

6. Create a new transaction using the session. For example:

   Transaction tx = session.beginTransaction();
   

7. Create a new instance of the User class you created in step 3, and set its properties. For example:

   User user = new User();
   user.setUsername("john_doe");
   user.setEmail("[email protected]");
   

8. Save the new object to the database using the session. For example:

   session.save(user);
   

9. Commit the transaction using the session. For example:

   tx.commit();
   

10. Close the session using the session factory. For example:

    sessionFactory.close();
    

That's it! You've created a simple Hibernate application that saves a new user object to the database. You can use similar steps to retrieve, update, and delete objects from the database using Hibernate.