Java Persistence API 2.1

The Java Persistence API 2.1 Specification was developed under JSR-338. This section just gives you an overview of the improvements in the API. The complete document specification (for more information) can be downloaded from http://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/final/jsr338/index.html.

JPA (Java Persistence API)

JPA (Java Persistence API) is a Java specification that aims to define the standard features of ORMs (Object-Relational Mappings). However, JPA is not a product but a set of interfaces that require implementations. The most well-known implementations are as follows: Hibernate, Toplink, OpenJPA, and EclipseLink, which is the reference implementation.

Briefly, we can say that an ORM is an API used to establish a correspondence between the object model and a relational database. It gives you the ability to handle the data of your database as if they were objects, without too much worry about the physical schema.

JPA in action

JPA is based on the concept of...