Hibernate Interview Questions and Answers

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Hibernate Interview Questions and Answers

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 BY PANKAJ 55 COMMENTS
Hibernate is one of the most widely used ORM tool for Java applications. Its used a lot in enterprise
applications for database operations. So I decided to write a post about hibernate interview questions to
brush up your knowledge before the interview.
Whether you are fresher or experienced, having good knowledge or Hibernate ORM tool helps in cracking
interview. Here I am providing important hibernate interview questions with answers to help you brush up
your knowledge and impress your interviewer. Just like other interview questions posts, chances are that I
will be adding more questions to this list in future, so you might want to bookmark it for future reference.
Recently I have written a lot of posts on hibernate, most of them contains complete downloadable projects.
I will provide reference to them as and when needed and you can go through them to refresh your
knowledge.
Hibernate Interview Questions

1. What is Hibernate Framework?
2. What is Java Persistence API (JPA)?
3. What are the important bene ts of using Hibernate Framework?
4. What are the advantages of Hibernate over JDBC?
5. Name some important interfaces of Hibernate framework?
http://www.journaldev.com/3633/hibernateinterviewquestionsandanswers 1/39
6. What is hibernate con guration le?

7. What is hibernate mapping le?
8. Name some important annotations used for Hibernate mapping?
9. What is Hibernate SessionFactory and how to con gure it?
10. Hibernate SessionFactory is thread safe?
11. What is Hibernate Session and how to get it?
12. Hibernate Session is thread safe?
13. What is di erence between openSession and getCurrentSession?
14. What is di erence between Hibernate Session get() and load() method?
15. What is hibernate caching? Explain Hibernate rst level cache?
16. How to con gure Hibernate Second Level Cache using EHCache?
17. What are di erent states of an entity bean?
18. What is use of Hibernate Session merge() call?
19. What is di erence between Hibernate save(), saveOrUpdate() and persist() methods?
20. What will happen if we dont have no-args constructor in Entity bean?
21. What is di erence between sorted collection and ordered collection, which one is better?
22. What are the collection types in Hibernate?
23. How to implement Joins in Hibernate?
24. Why we should not make Entity Class nal?
25. What is HQL and what are its bene ts?
26. What is Query Cache in Hibernate?
27. Can we execute native sql query in hibernate?
28. What is the bene t of native sql query support in hibernate?
29. What is Named SQL Query?
30. What are the bene ts of Named SQL Query?
31. What is the bene t of Hibernate Criteria API?
32. How to log hibernate generated sql queries in log les?
33. What is Hibernate Proxy and how it helps in lazy loading?
34. How to implement relationships in hibernate?
35. How transaction management works in Hibernate?
36. What is cascading and what are di erent types of cascading?
37. How to integrate log4j logging in hibernate application?
38. How to use application server JNDI DataSource with Hibernate framework?
39. How to integrate Hibernate and Spring frameworks?
40. What is HibernateTemplate class?
41. How to integrate Hibernate with Servlet or Struts2 web applications?
42. Which design patterns are used in Hibernate framework?
43. What are best practices to follow with Hibernate framework?
44. What is Hibernate Validator Framework?
45. What is the bene t of Hibernate Tools Eclipse plugin?
Hibernate Interview Questions and Answers

1. What is Hibernate Framework?
Object-relational mapping or ORM is the programming technique to map application domain model
objects to the relational database tables. Hibernate is java based ORM tool that provides framework for
mapping application domain objects to the relational database tables and vice versa.
Hibernate provides reference implementation of Java Persistence API, that makes it a great choice as
ORM tool with bene ts of loose coupling. We can use Hibernate persistence API for CRUD operations.
Hibernate framework provide option to map plain old java objects to traditional database tables with
the use of JPA annotations as well as XML based con guration.
Similarly hibernate con gurations are exible and can be done from XML con guration le as well as
programmatically. For a quick overview of hibernate framework usage, you can go through Hibernate
Beginners Tutorial.
2. What is Java Persistence API (JPA)?

Java Persistence API (JPA) provides speci cation for managing the relational data in applications.
Current JPA version 2.1 was started in July 2011 as JSR 338. JPA 2.1 was approved as nal on 22 May
2013.
JPA speci cations is de ned with annotations in javax.persistence package. Using JPA annotation helps
us in writing implementation independent code.
3. What are the important bene ts of using Hibernate Framework?

Some of the important bene ts of using hibernate framework are:
1. Hibernate eliminates all the boiler-plate code that comes with JDBC and takes care of managing
resources, so we can focus on business logic.
2. Hibernate framework provides support for XML as well as JPA annotations, that makes our code
implementation independent.
3. Hibernate provides a powerful query language (HQL) that is similar to SQL. However, HQL is fully
object-oriented and understands concepts like inheritance, polymorphism and association.
4. Hibernate is an open source project from Red Hat Community and used worldwide. This makes it
a better choice than others because learning curve is small and there are tons of online
documentations and help is easily available in forums.
5. Hibernate is easy to integrate with other Java EE frameworks, its so popular that Spring
Framework provides built-in support for integrating hibernate with Spring applications.
6. Hibernate supports lazy initialization using proxy objects and perform actual database queries
only when its required.
7. Hibernate cache helps us in getting better performance.
8. For database vendor speci c feature, hibernate is suitable because we can also execute native
sql queries.
Overall hibernate is the best choice in current market for ORM tool, it contains all the features that you
will ever need in an ORM tool.
4. What are the advantages of Hibernate over JDBC?

Some of the important advantages of Hibernate framework over JDBC are:
1. Hibernate removes a lot of boiler-plate code that comes with JDBC API, the code looks more
cleaner and readable.
2. Hibernate supports inheritance, associations and collections. These features are not present with
JDBC API.
3. Hibernate implicitly provides transaction management, in fact most of the queries cant be
executed outside transaction. In JDBC API, we need to write code for transaction management
using commit and rollback. Read more at JDBC Transaction Management.
4. JDBC API throws SQLException that is a checked exception, so we need to write a lot of try-catch
block code. Most of the times its redundant in every JDBC call and used for transaction
management. Hibernate wraps JDBC exceptions and throw JDBCException or
HibernateException un-checked exception, so we dont need to write code to handle it.
Hibernate built-in transaction management removes the usage of try-catch blocks.
5. Hibernate Query Language (HQL) is more object oriented and close to java programming
language. For JDBC, we need to write native sql queries.
6. Hibernate supports caching that is better for performance, JDBC queries are not cached hence
performance is low.
7. Hibernate provide option through which we can create database tables too, for JDBC tables must
exist in the database.
8. Hibernate con guration helps us in using JDBC like connection as well as JNDI DataSource for
connection pool. This is very important feature in enterprise application and completely missing
in JDBC API.
9. Hibernate supports JPA annotations, so code is independent of implementation and easily
replaceable with other ORM tools. JDBC code is very tightly coupled with the application.
5. Name some important interfaces of Hibernate framework?

Some of the important interfaces of Hibernate framework are:
1. SessionFactory (org.hibernate.SessionFactory): SessionFactory is an immutable thread-safe

cache of compiled mappings for a single database. We need to initialize SessionFactory once
and then we can cache and reuse it. SessionFactory instance is used to get the Session objects
for database operations.
2. Session (org.hibernate.Session): Session is a single-threaded, short-lived object representing a
conversation between the application and the persistent store. It wraps JDBC
java.sql.Connection and works as a factory for org.hibernate.Transaction. We should open
session only when its required and close it as soon as we are done using it. Session object is the
interface between java application code and hibernate framework and provide methods for
CRUD operations.
3. Transaction (org.hibernate.Transaction): Transaction is a single-threaded, short-lived object
used by the application to specify atomic units of work. It abstracts the application from the
underlying JDBC or JTA transaction. A org.hibernate.Session might span multiple
org.hibernate.Transaction in some cases.
6. What is hibernate con guration le?

Hibernate con guration le contains database speci c con gurations and used to initialize
SessionFactory. We provide database credentials or JNDI resource information in the hibernate
con guration xml le. Some other important parts of hibernate con guration le is Dialect information,
so that hibernate knows the database type and mapping le or class details.
7. What is hibernate mapping le?

Hibernate mapping le is used to de ne the entity bean elds and database table column mappings.
We know that JPA annotations can be used for mapping but sometimes XML mapping le comes
handy when we are using third party classes and we cant use annotations.
8. Name some important annotations used for Hibernate mapping?

Hibernate supports JPA annotations and it has some other annotations in
org.hibernate.annotations package. Some of the important JPA and hibernate annotations used
are:
1. javax.persistence.Entity: Used with model classes to specify that they are entity beans.
2. javax.persistence.Table: Used with entity beans to de ne the corresponding table name in
database.
3. javax.persistence.Access: Used to de ne the access type, either eld or property. Default value
is eld and if you want hibernate to use getter/setter methods then you need to set it to property.
4. javax.persistence.Id: Used to de ne the primary key in the entity bean.
5. javax.persistence.EmbeddedId: Used to de ne composite primary key in the entity bean.
6. javax.persistence.Column: Used to de ne the column name in database table.
7. javax.persistence.GeneratedValue: Used to de ne the strategy to be used for generation of
primary key. Used in conjunction with javax.persistence.GenerationType enum.
8. javax.persistence.OneToOne: Used to de ne the one-to-one mapping between two entity beans.

We have other similar annotations as OneToMany, ManyToOne and ManyToMany
9. org.hibernate.annotations.Cascade: Used to de ne the cascading between two entity beans,
used with mappings. It works in conjunction with org.hibernate.annotations.CascadeType
10. javax.persistence.PrimaryKeyJoinColumn: Used to de ne the property for foreign key. Used with
org.hibernate.annotations.GenericGenerator and org.hibernate.annotations.Parameter
Here are two classes showing usage of these annotations.
packagecom.journaldev.hibernate.model;
importjavax.persistence.Access;
importjavax.persistence.AccessType;
importjavax.persistence.Column;
importjavax.persistence.Entity;
importjavax.persistence.GeneratedValue;
importjavax.persistence.GenerationType;
importjavax.persistence.Id;
importjavax.persistence.OneToOne;
importjavax.persistence.Table;
importorg.hibernate.annotations.Cascade;
@Entity
@Table(name="EMPLOYEE")
@Access(value=AccessType.FIELD)
publicclassEmployee{
@Id
@GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)
@Column(name="emp_id")
privatelongid;
@Column(name="emp_name")
privateStringname;
@OneToOne(mappedBy="employee")
@Cascade(value=org.hibernate.annotations.CascadeType.ALL)
privateAddressaddress;
//gettersettermethods
}
packagecom.journaldev.hibernate.model;
importjavax.persistence.Access;
importjavax.persistence.AccessType;
importjavax.persistence.Column;
importjavax.persistence.Entity;
importjavax.persistence.GeneratedValue;
importjavax.persistence.Id;
importjavax.persistence.OneToOne;
importjavax.persistence.PrimaryKeyJoinColumn;
importjavax.persistence.Table;
importorg.hibernate.annotations.GenericGenerator;
importorg.hibernate.annotations.Parameter;
@Entity
@Table(name="ADDRESS")
@Access(value=AccessType.FIELD)
publicclassAddress{
@Id
@Column(name="emp_id",unique=true,nullable=false)
@GeneratedValue(generator="gen")
@GenericGenerator(name="gen",strategy="foreign",parameters={
@Parameter(name="property",value="employee")})
privatelongid;
@Column(name="address_line1")
privateStringaddressLine1;
@OneToOne
@PrimaryKeyJoinColumn
privateEmployeeemployee;
//gettersettermethods
9. What is Hibernate SessionFactory and how to con gure it?

SessionFactory is the factory class used to get the Session objects. SessionFactory is responsible to
read the hibernate con guration parameters and connect to the database and provide Session objects.
Usually an application has a single SessionFactory instance and threads servicing client requests
obtain Session instances from this factory.
The internal state of a SessionFactory is immutable. Once it is created this internal state is set. This
internal state includes all of the metadata about Object/Relational Mapping.
SessionFactory also provide methods to get the Class metadata and Statistics instance to get the stats
of query executions, second level cache details etc.
10. Hibernate SessionFactory is thread safe?

Internal state of SessionFactory is immutable, so its thread safe. Multiple threads can access it
simultaneously to get Session instances.
11. What is Hibernate Session and how to get it?

Hibernate Session is the interface between java application layer and hibernate. This is the core
interface used to perform database operations. Lifecycle of a session is bound by the beginning and
end of a transaction.
Session provide methods to perform create, read, update and delete operations for a persistent object.
We can execute HQL queries, SQL native queries and create criteria using Session object.
12. Hibernate Session is thread safe?

Hibernate Session object is not thread safe, every thread should get its own session instance and
close it after its work is nished.
13. What is di erence between openSession and getCurrentSession?

Hibernate SessionFactory getCurrentSession() method returns the session bound to the context. But
for this to work, we need to con gure it in hibernate con guration le. Since this session object belongs
to the hibernate context, we dont need to close it. Once the session factory is closed, this session
object gets closed.
<propertyname="hibernate.current_session_context_class">thread</property>
Hibernate SessionFactory openSession() method always opens a new session. We should close this
session object once we are done with all the database operations. We should open a new session for
each request in multi-threaded environment.
There is another method openStatelessSession() that returns stateless session, for more details with
examples please read Hibernate openSession vs getCurrentSession.
14. What is di erence between Hibernate Session get() and load()

method?
Hibernate session comes with di erent methods to load data from database. get and load are most
used methods, at rst look they seems similar but there are some di erences between them.
1. get() loads the data as soon as its called whereas load() returns a proxy object and loads data
only when its actually required, so load() is better because it support lazy loading.
2. Since load() throws exception when data is not found, we should use it only when we know data
exists.
3. We should use get() when we want to make sure data exists in the database.
For clari cation regarding the di erences, please read Hibernate get vs load.
15. What is hibernate caching? Explain Hibernate rst level cache?

As the name suggests, hibernate caches query data to make our application faster. Hibernate Cache
can be very useful in gaining fast application performance if used correctly. The idea behind cache is
to reduce the number of database queries, hence reducing the throughput time of the application.
Hibernate rst level cache is associated with the Session object. Hibernate rst level cache is enabled
by default and there is no way to disable it. However hibernate provides methods through which we
can delete selected objects from the cache or clear the cache completely.
Any object cached in a session will not be visible to other sessions and when the session is closed, all
the cached objects will also be lost.
For better explanation, please read Hibernate First Level Cache.
16. How to con gure Hibernate Second Level Cache using EHCache?
EHCache is the best choice for utilizing hibernate second level cache. Following steps are required to
enable EHCache in hibernate application.
Add hibernate-ehcache dependency in your maven project, if its not maven then add
corresponding jars.
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernateehcache</artifactId>
<version>4.3.5.Final</version>
</dependency>
Add below properties in hibernate con guration le.
<property
name="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class">org.hibernate.cache.ehcache.EhCacheRegionFacto

<!Forsingletonfactory>
<!<property
name="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class">org.hibernate.cache.ehcache.SingletonEhCacheRe
>

<!enablesecondlevelcacheandquerycache>
<propertyname="hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache">true</property>
<propertyname="hibernate.cache.use_query_cache">true</property>
<property
name="net.sf.ehcache.configurationResourceName">/myehcache.xml</property>
Create EHCache con guration le, a sample le myehcache.xml would look like below.
<?xmlversion="1.0"encoding="UTF8"?>
<ehcachexmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchemainstance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="ehcache.xsd"updateCheck="true"
monitoring="autodetect"dynamicConfig="true">

<diskStorepath="java.io.tmpdir/ehcache"/>

<defaultCachemaxEntriesLocalHeap="10000"eternal="false"
timeToIdleSeconds="120"timeToLiveSeconds="120"
diskSpoolBufferSizeMB="30"
maxEntriesLocalDisk="10000000"diskExpiryThreadIntervalSeconds="120"
memoryStoreEvictionPolicy="LRU"statistics="true">
<persistencestrategy="localTempSwap"/>
</defaultCache>

<cachename="employee"maxEntriesLocalHeap="10000"eternal="false"
timeToIdleSeconds="5"timeToLiveSeconds="10">
</cache>

<cachename="org.hibernate.cache.internal.StandardQueryCache"
maxEntriesLocalHeap="5"eternal="false"timeToLiveSeconds="120">
</cache>

<cachename="org.hibernate.cache.spi.UpdateTimestampsCache"
maxEntriesLocalHeap="5000"eternal="true">
</cache>
</ehcache>
Annotate entity beans with @Cache annotation and caching strategy to use. For example,
importorg.hibernate.annotations.Cache;
importorg.hibernate.annotations.CacheConcurrencyStrategy;
@Entity
@Table(name="ADDRESS")
@Cache(usage=CacheConcurrencyStrategy.READ_ONLY,region="employee")
publicclassAddress{
Thats it, we are done. Hibernate will use the EHCache for second level caching, read Hibernate
EHCache Example for a complete example with explanation.
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17. What are di erent states of an entity bean?

An entity bean instance can exist is one of the three states.
1. Transient: When an object is never persisted or associated with any session, its in transient state.
Transient instances may be made persistent by calling save(), persist() or saveOrUpdate().
Persistent instances may be made transient by calling delete().
2. Persistent: When an object is associated with a unique session, its in persistent state. Any
instance returned by a get() or load() method is persistent.
3. Detached: When an object is previously persistent but not associated with any session, its in
detached state. Detached instances may be made persistent by calling update(), saveOrUpdate(),
lock() or replicate(). The state of a transient or detached instance may also be made persistent as
a new persistent instance by calling merge().
18. What is use of Hibernate Session merge() call?

Hibernate merge can be used to update existing values, however this method create a copy from the
passed entity object and return it. The returned object is part of persistent context and tracked for any
changes, passed object is not tracked. For example program, read Hibernate merge.
19. Whatis di erence between Hibernate save(), saveOrUpdate() and

persist() methods?
Hibernate save can be used to save entity to database. Problem with save() is that it can be invoked
without a transaction and if we have mapping entities, then only the primary object gets saved causing
data inconsistencies. Also save returns the generated id immediately.
Hibernate persist is similar to save with transaction. I feel its better than save because we cant use it
outside the boundary of transaction, so all the object mappings are preserved. Also persist doesnt
return the generated id immediately, so data persistence happens when needed.
Hibernate saveOrUpdate results into insert or update queries based on the provided data. If the data is
present in the database, update query is executed. We can use saveOrUpdate() without transaction
also, but again you will face the issues with mapped objects not getting saved if session is not ushed.
For example usage of these methods, read Hibernate save vs persist.

20. What will happen if we dont

SENDhave no-args constructor in Entity
ME NOW!
bean?
Hibernate uses Re ection API to create instance of Entity beans, usually when you call get() or load()
methods. The method Class.newInstance() is used for this and it requires no-args constructor. So if
you wont have no-args constructor in entity beans, hibernate will fail to instantiate it and you will get
HibernateException.
21. What is di erence between sorted collection and ordered

collection, which one is better?
When we use Collection API sorting algorithms to sort a collection, its called sorted list. For small
collections, its not much of an overhead but for larger collections it can lead to slow performance and
OutOfMemory errors. Also the entity beans should implement Comparable or Comparator interface for
it to work, read more at java object list sorting.
If we are using Hibernate framework to load collection data from database, we can use its Criteria API
to use order by clause to get ordered list. Below code snippet shows you how to get it.
List<Employee>empList=session.createCriteria(Employee.class)

.addOrder(Order.desc("id")).list();
Ordered list is better than sorted list because the actual sorting is done at database level, that is fast
and doesnt cause memory issues.
22. What are the collection types in Hibernate?

There are ve collection types in hibernate used for one-to-many relationship mappings.
1. Bag
2. Set
3. List
4. Array
5. Map
23. How to implement Joins in Hibernate?

There are various ways to implement joins in hibernate.
Using associations such as one-to-one, one-to-many etc.

Using JOIN in the HQL query. There is another form join fetch to load associated data
simultaneously, no lazy loading.
We can re native sql query and use join keyword.

24. Why we should not make Entity

SEND MEClass
NOW! nal?
Hibernate use proxy classes for lazy loading of data, only when its needed. This is done by extending
the entity bean, if the entity bean will be nal then lazy loading will not be possible, hence low
performance.
25. What is HQL and what are its bene ts?

Hibernate Framework comes with a powerful object-oriented query language Hibernate Query
Language (HQL). Its very similar to SQL except that we use Objects instead of table names, that makes
it more close to object oriented programming.
Hibernate query language is case-insensitive except for java class and variable names. So SeLeCT is
the same as sELEct is the same as SELECT, but com.journaldev.model.Employee is not same as
com.journaldev.model.EMPLOYEE.
The HQL queries are cached but we should avoid it as much as possible, otherwise we will have to
take care of associations. However its a better choice than native sql query because of Object-
Oriented approach. Read more at HQL Example.
26. What is Query Cache in Hibernate?

Hibernate implements a cache region for queries resultset that integrates closely with the hibernate
second-level cache.
This is an optional feature and requires additional steps in code. This is only useful for queries that are
run frequently with the same parameters. First of all we need to con gure below property in hibernate
con guration le.
<propertyname="hibernate.cache.use_query_cache">true</property>
And in code, we need to use setCacheable(true) method of Query, quick example looks like below.
Queryquery=session.createQuery("fromEmployee");
query.setCacheable(true);
query.setCacheRegion("ALL_EMP");
27. Can we execute native sql query in hibernate?
Hibernate provide option to execute native SQL queries through the use of SQLQuery object.
For normal scenarios, it is however not the recommended approach because we loose bene ts related
to hibernate association and hibernate rst level caching. Read more at Hibernate Native SQL Query

Example.
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28. What is the bene t of native sql query support in hibernate?
Native SQL Query comes handy when we want to execute database speci c queries that are not
supported by Hibernate API such as query hints or the CONNECT keyword in Oracle Database.
29. What is Named SQL Query?

Hibernate provides Named Query that we can de ne at a central location and use them anywhere in
the code. We can created named queries for both HQL and Native SQL.
Hibernate Named Queries can be de ned in Hibernate mapping les or through the use of JPA
annotations @NamedQuery and @NamedNativeQuery.
30. What are the bene ts of Named SQL Query?

Hibernate Named Query helps us in grouping queries at a central location rather than letting them
scattered all over the code.
Hibernate Named Query syntax is checked when the hibernate session factory is created, thus making
the application fail fast in case of any error in the named queries.
Hibernate Named Query is global, means once de ned it can be used throughout the application.
However one of the major disadvantage of Named query is that its hard to debug, because we need
to nd out the location where its de ned.
31. What is the bene t of Hibernate Criteria API?

Hibernate provides Criteria API that is more object oriented for querying the database and getting
results. We cant use Criteria to run update or delete queries or any DDL statements. Its only used to
fetch the results from the database using more object oriented approach.
Some of the common usage of Criteria API are:
Criteria API provides Projection that we can use for aggregate functions such as sum(), min(),
max() etc.
Criteria API can be used with ProjectionList to fetch selected columns only.
Criteria API can be used for join queries by joining multiple tables, useful methods are
createAlias(), setFetchMode() and setProjection()
Criteria API can be used for fetching results with conditions, useful methods are add() where we
can add Restrictions.
Criteria API provides addOrder() method that we can use for ordering the results.
Learn some quick examples at Hibernate Criteria Example.

Your email How to log hibernate generated sql queries in log les?
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We can set below property for hibernate con guration to log SQL queries.
<propertyname="hibernate.show_sql">true</property>
However we should use it only in Development or Testing environment and turn it o in production
environment.
33. What is Hibernate Proxy and how it helps in lazy loading?

Hibernate uses proxy object to support lazy loading. Basically when you load data from tables,
hibernate doesnt load all the mapped objects. As soon as you reference a child or lookup object via
getter methods, if the linked entity is not in the session cache, then the proxy code will go to the
database and load the linked object. It uses javassist to e ectively and dynamically generate sub-
classed implementations of your entity objects.
34. How to implement relationships in hibernate?

We can easily implement one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships in hibernate. It
can be done using JPA annotations as well as XML based con gurations. For better understanding,
you should go through following tutorials.
1. Hibernate One to One Mapping

2. Hibernate One to Many Mapping
3. Hibernate Many to Many Mapping
35. How transaction management works in Hibernate?

Transaction management is very easy in hibernate because most of the operations are not permitted
outside of a transaction. So after getting the session from SessionFactory, we can call session
beginTransaction() to start the transaction. This method returns the Transaction reference that we
can use later on to either commit or rollback the transaction.
Overall hibernate transaction management is better than JDBC transaction management because we
dont need to rely on exceptions for rollback. Any exception thrown by session methods automatically
rollback the transaction.
36. What is cascading and what are di erent types of cascading?
When we have relationship between entities, then we need to de ne how the di erent operations will
a ect the other entity. This is done by cascading and there are di erent types of it.

Here is a simple example of applying cascading between primary and secondary entities.

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importorg.hibernate.annotations.Cascade;
@Entity
@Table(name="EMPLOYEE")
publicclassEmployee{
@OneToOne(mappedBy="employee")
@Cascade(value=org.hibernate.annotations.CascadeType.ALL)
privateAddressaddress;
Note that Hibernate CascadeType enum constants are little bit di erent from JPA
javax.persistence.CascadeType, so we need to use the Hibernate CascadeType and Cascade
annotations for mappings, as shown in above example.
Commonly used cascading types as de ned in CascadeType enum are:
1. None: No Cascading, its not a type but when we dont de ne any cascading then no operations
in parent a ects the child.
2. ALL: Cascades save, delete, update, evict, lock, replicate, merge, persist. Basically everything
3. SAVE_UPDATE: Cascades save and update, available only in hibernate.
4. DELETE: Corresponds to the Hibernate native DELETE action, only in hibernate.
5. DETATCH, MERGE, PERSIST, REFRESH and REMOVE for similar operations
6. LOCK: Corresponds to the Hibernate native LOCK action.
7. REPLICATE: Corresponds to the Hibernate native REPLICATE action.
37. How to integrate log4j logging in hibernate application?

Hibernate 4 uses JBoss logging rather than slf4j used in earlier versions. For log4j con guration, we
need to follow below steps.
Add log4j dependencies for maven project, if not maven then add corresponding jar les.
Create log4j.xml con guration le or log4j.properties le and keep it in the classpath. You can
keep le name whatever you want because we will load it in next step.
For standalone projects, use static block to con gure log4j using DOMConfigurator or
PropertyConfigurator. For web applications, you can use ServletContextListener to con gure it.
Thats it, our setup is ready. Create org.apache.log4j.Logger instance in the java classes and start
logging. For complete example code, you should go through Hibernate log4j example and Servlet
log4j example.
38. How to use application server JNDI DataSource with Hibernate

framework?
For web applications, its always best to allow servlet container to manage the connection pool. Thats
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why we de ne JNDI resource for DataSource and we can use it in the web application. Its very easy to
use in Hibernate, all we need is to remove all the database speci c properties and use below property
to provide the JNDI DataSource name.
<property
name="hibernate.connection.datasource">java:comp/env/jdbc/MyLocalDB</property>
For a complete example, go through Hibernate JNDI DataSource Example.
39. How to integrate Hibernate and Spring frameworks?

Spring is one of the most used Java EE Framework and Hibernate is the most popular ORM framework.
Thats why Spring Hibernate combination is used a lot in enterprise applications. The best part with
using Spring is that it provides out-of-box integration support for Hibernate with Spring ORM module.
Following steps are required to integrate Spring and Hibernate frameworks together.
1. Add hibernate-entitymanager, hibernate-core and spring-orm dependencies.

2. Create Model classes and corresponding DAO implementations for database operations. Note
that DAO classes will use SessionFactory that will be injected by Spring Bean con guration.
3. If you are using Hibernate 3, you need to con gure
org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.LocalSessionFactoryBean or
org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.annotation.AnnotationSessionFactoryBean in
Spring Bean con guration le. For Hibernate 4, there is single class
org.springframework.orm.hibernate4.LocalSessionFactoryBean that should be con gured.
4. Note that we dont need to use Hibernate Transaction Management, we can leave it to Spring
declarative transaction management using @Transactional annotation.
For complete example go through Spring Hibernate Integration and Spring MVC Hibernate Integration.
40. What is HibernateTemplate class?

When Spring and Hibernate integration started, Spring ORM provided two helper classes
HibernateDaoSupport and HibernateTemplate. The reason to use them was to get the Session from
Hibernate and get the bene t of Spring transaction management. However from Hibernate 3.0.1, we
can use SessionFactory getCurrentSession() method to get the current session and use it to get the
spring transaction management bene ts. If you go through above examples, you will see how easy it is
and thats why we should not use these classes anymore.
One other bene t of HibernateTemplate was exception translation but that can be achieved easily by
using @Repository annotation with service classes, shown in above spring mvc example. This is a trick
question to judge your knowledge and whether you are aware of recent developments or not.
Your email How to integrate Hibernate with Servlet or Struts2 web
41. address please..
applications? SEND ME NOW!
Hibernate integration with Servlet or Struts2 needs to be done using ServletContextListener, a

complete example can be found at Hibernate Struts2 Integration Example.
42. Which design patterns are used in Hibernate framework?

Some of the design patterns used in Hibernate Framework are:
Domain Model Pattern An object model of the domain that incorporates both behavior and
data.
Data Mapper A layer of Mappers that moves data between objects and a database while
keeping them independent of each other and the mapper itself.
Proxy Pattern for lazy loading
Factory pattern in SessionFactory
43. What are best practices to follow with Hibernate framework?

Some of the best practices to follow in Hibernate are:
Always check the primary key eld access, if its generated at the database layer then you should
not have a setter for this.
By default hibernate set the eld values directly, without using setters. So if you want hibernate to
use setters, then make sure proper access is de ned as @Access(value=AccessType.PROPERTY).
If access type is property, make sure annotations are used with getter methods and not setter
methods. Avoid mixing of using annotations on both led and getter methods.
Use native sql query only when it cant be done using HQL, such as using database speci c
feature.
If you have to sort the collection, use ordered list rather than sorting it using Collection API.
Use named queries wisely, keep it at a single place for easy debugging. Use them for commonly
used queries only. For entity speci c query, you can keep them in the entity bean itself.
For web applications, always try to use JNDI DataSource rather than con guring to create
connection in hibernate.
Avoid Many-to-Many relationships, it can be easily implemented using bidirectional One-to-Many
and Many-to-One relationships.
For collections, try to use Lists, maps and sets. Avoid array because you dont get bene t of lazy
loading.
Do not treat exceptions as recoverable, roll back the Transaction and close the Session. If you do
not do this, Hibernate cannot guarantee that in-memory state accurately represents the
persistent state.
Prefer DAO pattern for exposing the di erent methods that can be used with entity bean
Prefer lazy fetching for associations

44. What is Hibernate Validator Framework?
Data validation is integral part of any application. You will nd data validation at presentation layer with
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the use of Javascript, then at the server side code before processing it. Also data validation occurs
before persisting it, to make sure it follows the correct format.
Validation is a cross cutting task, so we should try to keep it apart from our business logic. Thats why
JSR303 and JSR349 provides speci cation for validating a bean by using annotations. Hibernate
Validator provides the reference implementation of both these bean validation specs. Read more at
Hibernate Validation Example.
45. What is the bene t of Hibernate Tools Eclipse plugin?

Hibernate Tools plugin helps us in writing hibernate con guration and mapping les easily. The major
bene t is the content assist to help us with properties or xml tags to use. It also validates them against
the Hibernate DTD les, so we know any mistakes before hand. Learn how to install and use at
Hibernate Tools Eclipse Plugin.
Thats all for Hibernate Interview Questions and Answers, I hope it will help you for interview as a fresher or
experienced person. Please let me know if I have missed any important question here, I will add that to the
list.
FILED UNDER: HIBERNATE, INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
About Pankaj
If you have come this far, it means that you liked what you are reading. Why not reach little more and connect
with me directly on Google Plus, Facebook or Twitter. I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on my
articles directly.
Recently I started creating video tutorials too, so do check out my videos on Youtube.
Hibernate Validator JSR303 Example Tutorial

Primefaces Toolbar, ToolbarGroup & Tooltip Components Example Tutorial
Comments
Niraj IMS says

MAY 19, 2016 AT 3:13 AM
HibernateDaoSupport and HibernateTemplate should not be used for any further development.
This is what to be instructed in the latest document from Spring o cials.

Do you have any idea as to why such prohibition?
Thanks for everything
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Reply
Priyesh says
FEBRUARY 12, 2016 AT 1:37 AM
Hi Pankaj,
Good article for interview preparation, but in question# 10 have little doubt if SessionFactory is thread
safe than how Multiple threads can access it simultaneously to get Session instances.
Reply
Himansu Nayak says

AUGUST 21, 2016 AT 10:55 AM
SessionFactoryImpl class of hibernate is almost immutable but SessionBuilder is still mutable
Reply
Naveen says
SEPTEMBER 26, 2016 AT 4:28 AM
ThreadSafe meansthe SessionFactory objects state cannot be changed by any thread accessing it.
It does not mean threads cant access simultaneously.
Multiple threads can safely access a ThreadSafe object-SessionFactory.
Reply
prakash says
OCTOBER 30, 2015 AT 2:53 AM
once the data is present(come to) in proxy object..then after the data was changedthen the same
request is comehereFree eBook:isJava
question the Design
data is Patterns (130proxy
taken from Pages)
orDownload
database..Now!
Reply
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Vivek says
DECEMBER 13, 2015 AT 10:17 PM
Proxy Object.
Reply
Darshita Patel says

OCTOBER 25, 2015 AT 6:06 PM
Question I was asked in an interview : can you drop a table using hibernate/hql? and how ?
I believe it will be good to add this question in the list.
Thanks.
Reply
Himansu Nayak says

AUGUST 21, 2016 AT 10:43 AM
Not possible without Native QL

session.createSQLQuery(Native SQL).executeUpdate();
Reply
DBA says
Hi Pankaj,
How can i connect java application to mainframe system using hibernate ?

What con gurations need to perform this.
Reply
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Himansu Nayak says
AUGUST 21, 2016 AT 10:57 AM
hibernate is not a protocol
Reply
Nagaraju Gunji says

How to create custom datatypes in Hibernate, and use of lters in Hibernate?
Reply
Nagaraju Gunji says

Can we maintain two DB con gurations in single hibernate con guration le? If yes, How?
If No, Why?
Reply
Sevak says
JANUARY 19, 2016 AT 6:36 AM
No as it wont validate as per hibernate dtd.
Reply
Himansu Nayak says
AUGUST 21, 2016 AT 10:40 AM
If you go with Hibernate-JPA then you can con gure multiple persistence-unit in persistence.xml.
Each persistenceFree
uniteBook:
de nesJava Design Patterns (130 Pages) Download Now!
a datasource.
Reply
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Yegor says
AUGUST 26, 2015 AT 2:17 AM
Short and very helpful

thanks a lot
Reply
Swetha says
JULY 6, 2015 AT 1:10 AM
Very useful for interviews. Great work.
Reply
vishwas says
JUNE 22, 2015 AT 4:06 PM
oh man ur super !!!
Reply
hemant masal says

JUNE 2, 2015 AT 6:00 AM
hi sir
its very useful for the interview
Reply

mohit rathod says
MAY 26, 2015 AT 4:54 AM SEND ME NOW!
Excellent but
i have to look for
Avoid Many-to-Many relationships, it can be easily implemented using bidirectional One-to-Many and
Many-to-One relationships.
Reply
Kapil Bhardwaj says

MAY 23, 2015 AT 8:04 PM
Thanks a lot Pankaj,amazing collections of Questions.It covered all the questions.However,i wanted to
know regarding one question:-
Q) How to alter Database speci c con guration information in Hibernate without restarting the entire
application?
Regards,
Kapil Bhardwaj
Reply
Gagan says
MAY 22, 2015 AT 2:19 AM
Nice article
Reply
Bhaskar says
MAY 3, 2015 AT 8:01 AM
hai sir
Free eBook:
This every help-full interview sir Java Design Patterns (130 Pages) Download Now!
Thanks sir
SEND ME NOW!
Bhaskar
Reply
Piyush Beli says

APRIL 28, 2015 AT 11:49 PM
This was really very concise but very well explained article. I have bookmarked this page and I can
always refer this page with con dence if I want to prepare for Hibernate interview.
Keep it up !!
Reply
nahar says
APRIL 3, 2015 AT 11:43 AM
really good sir it helping me but sir acctullly you havent give any example please sir next time provide
some example ,
but nice for imporvement
Reply
Swadhi says
APRIL 2, 2015 AT 8:15 PM
really appreciate the e ort! could you add questions on Hibernate inheritance with examples? thanks!
Reply
veerendra kumar says

MARCH 26, 2015 AT 10:27 PM
Your email address
I really likeplease..
this site for covered all java technologies,frameworksetc.here hibernate questions is
awesome,very thanks pankaj.
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Reply
Manula Thantriwatte says

MARCH 17, 2015 AT 3:38 AM
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge.
Reply
Abhishek says
MARCH 4, 2015 AT 1:09 AM
Thank You Very much for a very helpful set of questions
Reply
AMit Kumar Gupta says

FEBRUARY 20, 2015 AT 3:20 PM
This collection is really useful. Thanks a lot.
Reply
Gaurav Kumar Chauhan says

Thanks Pankaj, this blog really helps to freshers as well as for experience person.
Good work bro..appreciate your e orts and knowledge.
Keep it up.
Reply
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kolem says
Perfect article! I used it for interview preparation, it helped me to recover knowledges and I also learnt
several new things. Many thanks!
Reply
Rohan P. says
Hey hi pankaj, great work!!!
I have been following all of your Interview related question and answer, its lot much helpful..
In an recent interview, I have been asked a question How to create two same tables in di erent
Schemas by using single con guration le? And How to use single con guration le to work with two
di erent databases?, I was clueless for these question & these questions put me out of the interview.
Can you please answer them.
Thank you.
Reply
Pankaj says
You can create multiple session-factory con gurations with di erent name and then get them in the
Code by name, such as
session-factory name=OracleDB and

session-factory name=MySQLDB.
Reply
Raghav says
AUGUST 3, 2015 AT 5:31 PM
Your email address
Hiplease..
Pankaj,
Could you please give one example for How to create two same tables in di erent Schemas
SEND ME NOW!
by using single con guration le? And How to use single con guration le to work with two
di erent databases? Thanks.
Reply
Himansu Nayak says

AUGUST 21, 2016 AT 11:03 AM
check @Table() with catalog and schema
Reply
nithu says
Thanks a lot Pankaj, this tutorial is really helpful.. Keep posting !!
Reply
nirbi says
Sorry for interrupting you ,but i have a doubt related to named queries that u have mentioned above.
we are centralizing the query in one location for multi uses in our application instead of scattering it but
what are the the cons or draw backs of it???
Reply
Gaurav Kumar says

I think answer to Question 14 is incorrect. Both get and load supports lazy loading. The only di erence is
that
Your email get returns
address null if the row is not available corresponding to passed id while load throws an
please..
exception.
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Reply
Gaurav Kumar says

I was wrong. I misunderstood the proxy object thing but now its clear. The answer is perfectly
correct. Thanks
Reply
Mehatab Syed says

Great Job Pankaj. Its Awesome.
Reply
ali says
Hi Pankaj
Hibernate provides reference implementation of Java Persistence API
As this link shows Eclipselink is the RI of the Java Persistance API not the Hibernate.
please let me know if Im wrong.
regards
Reply
Pavel Strelchenko says

NOVEMBER 28, 2014 AT 12:12 PM
Hibernate provide option through which we can create database tables too, for JDBC tables must exist
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in the database. (question 4)
Sorry, but we also can create tables through JDBC native SQL queries. For example:
StringcreateQueryText="CREATETABLE`Employee`(\n"+
"IDintnotnullprimarykey\n"+
");";
Statementstatement=connection.createStatement();
statement.execute(createQueryText);
P.S. Thanks for your article! Its very usefull for me =)
Reply
Pankaj says
Yes we can, but in Hibernate we can con gure it to create if table doesnt exist. If you are using JDBC
in any application, the code will try to create table every time its executed and throw exception, yes
we can argue that we can catch and ignore it. But its very clumsy and not a preferred approach.
Reply
Gopal says
Great work Pankaj.
Could you please add N+1 update problem question and explanation.
Thanks
Reply
Dastagiri Reddy says

OCTOBER 27, 2014 AT 11:42 PM
Your email
Veryaddress please..
nice. Appreciate your e orts.
SEND ME NOW!
Reply
Bhavani says
Really useful for interviews, Thanks
Reply
Avnish Kumar says

Hi,
can you please give a detailed explanation , how to call a procedure in Hibernate 3.0 and struts 2.0 , I am
unable to do it ?
Reply
varalakshmi says
Hey we can call procudure using createSQLQuery::
session.createSQLQuery(CALL procedure_name(:param)).setParameter(param,
param).executeUpdate()
Reply
Savan Patel says
Great Work
FreeQuestion
Mostly all the Hibernate eBook: Java DesigninPatterns
covered (130 Pages) Download Now!
this post..
#Hibernate
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Reply
Deepak says
OCTOBER 16, 2014 AT 11:45 PM
Thanks Pankaj,this is very helpful..
Reply
Ram says
Good Interview Questions.
Reply
arun says
very nice questions. cheers.
Reply
rohit says
SEPTEMBER 3, 2014 AT 9:11 PM
Questions covered are very Good.:-)
Reply
Baidyanath Sinha says

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014 AT 12:47 PM
Interview questions and tutorials covered are
SENDawesome Pankaj:)
ME NOW!
Reply
Ajit Kumar says

AUGUST 16, 2014 AT 7:47 PM
Excellent work Pankaj. Appreciate your e orts.
Reply
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JAVA TUTORIAL #INDEX POSTS #INTERVIEW QUESTIONS RESOURCES STORE

HOME INTERVIEW QUESTIONS HIBERNATE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Hibernate Interview Questions and Answers

Hibernate Interview Questions

6. What is hibernate con guration le?

Hibernate Interview Questions and Answers

2. What is Java Persistence API (JPA)?

3. What are the important bene ts of using Hibernate Framework?

4. What are the advantages of Hibernate over JDBC?

5. Name some important interfaces of Hibernate framework?

1. SessionFactory (org.hibernate.SessionFactory): SessionFactory is an immutable thread-safe

6. What is hibernate con guration le?

7. What is hibernate mapping le?

8. Name some important annotations used for Hibernate mapping?

8. javax.persistence.OneToOne: Used to de ne the one-to-one mapping between two entity beans.

9. What is Hibernate SessionFactory and how to con gure it?

10. Hibernate SessionFactory is thread safe?

11. What is Hibernate Session and how to get it?

12. Hibernate Session is thread safe?

13. What is di erence between openSession and getCurrentSession?

14. What is di erence between Hibernate Session get() and load()

15. What is hibernate caching? Explain Hibernate rst level cache?

For better explanation, please read Hibernate First Level Cache.

Add below properties in hibernate con guration le.

Free eBook: Java Design Patterns (130 Pages) Download Now!

17. What are di erent states of an entity bean?

18. What is use of Hibernate Session merge() call?

19. Whatis di erence between Hibernate save(), saveOrUpdate() and

20. What will happen if we dont

21. What is di erence between sorted collection and ordered

22. What are the collection types in Hibernate?

23. How to implement Joins in Hibernate?

Using associations such as one-to-one, one-to-many etc.

24. Why we should not make Entity

25. What is HQL and what are its bene ts?

26. What is Query Cache in Hibernate?

27. Can we execute native sql query in hibernate?

29. What is Named SQL Query?

30. What are the bene ts of Named SQL Query?

31. What is the bene t of Hibernate Criteria API?

Some of the common usage of Criteria API are:

Learn some quick examples at Hibernate Criteria Example.

33. What is Hibernate Proxy and how it helps in lazy loading?

34. How to implement relationships in hibernate?

1. Hibernate One to One Mapping

35. How transaction management works in Hibernate?

36. What is cascading and what are di erent types of cascading?

Free eBook: Java Design Patterns (130 Pages) Download Now!

37. How to integrate log4j logging in hibernate application?

38. How to use application server JNDI DataSource with Hibernate

For a complete example, go through Hibernate JNDI DataSource Example.

39. How to integrate Hibernate and Spring frameworks?

1. Add hibernate-entitymanager, hibernate-core and spring-orm dependencies.

40. What is HibernateTemplate class?

Hibernate integration with Servlet or Struts2 needs to be done using ServletContextListener, a

42. Which design patterns are used in Hibernate framework?

43. What are best practices to follow with Hibernate framework?