Pro Hibernate discusses the need for OR-mapping and presents Hibernate as a premier tool to achieve the same. To date, Hibernate is the most popular object/relational mapping solution for Java. Discussed are all features associated with Hibernate, and ways to leverage this technology to incorporate effective persistence mechanisms in Java applications.Also included are numerous examples related to each Hibernate feature.This book even discusses the Hibernate Query Language (HQL). Overall, this book will help you develop and integrate Hibernate with your other lightweight enterprise Java endeavors.Hibernate is an existing open source and lightweight tool and query language alternative to the heavyweight JDO (Java Data Objects) and J2EE 1.4 database API and extension query languages. Hibernate is one of the leading open source communities that contributes heavily to the new database and mapping functions found in the EJB 3.0 and Java 2EE 5.0 specifications. JDO is no longer considered officially part of the J2EE 5.0. TOC:i. PrefaceThis section will cover the scope of the book, prerequisites, conventions and instructions about how to download packages and source code used in this book.Persistence in Java ApplicationsIntroduction to OR MappingMapping MetadataMapping Inheritance TreesMapping Object RelationshipsPerformance TuningOR Mapping GuidelinesHibernate Setup and ConfigurationUsing Hibernate: First ExamplePersistent ObjectsWorking with Collections and EnumerationsObject RelationshipsComposite ObjectsThe Hibernate Query LanguageHibernate Best Practices, patterns and toolsApplication Development using Hibernate: ExampleAppendix: Hibernate comparison with other OR mapping toolsii. References and resourcesiii. Index