Hibernate/JPA Table Per Class Inheritance Example

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In the previous article, we have discussed a below three inheritance strategies:

• Hibernate/JPA MappedSuperclass Inheritance Example

• Hibernate/JPA Single Table Inheritance Example

• Hibernate JPA Joined Table Inheritance Example

In this article, we’ll look into Hibernate/JPA table per class inheritance.

In a Table per class inheritance strategy, each concrete subclass has its own table containing both the subclass and the base class properties.

Let's demonstrates TABLE_PER_CLASS inheritance strategy with a complete hibernate example.

Technologies and tools used

• Hibernate 6.1.7.Final
• IDE - Eclipse
• Maven 3.5.3
• JavaSE 17
• MySQL - 8.0.13

Development Steps

1. Create a Simple Maven Project
2. Project Directory Structure
3. Add jar Dependencies to pom.xml
4. Creating the JPA Entities
5. Create a Hibernate configuration file - hibernate.cfg.xml
6. Create a Hibernate utility class
7. Create the Main class and Run an Application

1. Create a Simple Maven Project

Use the How to Create a Simple Maven Project in Eclipse article to create a simple Maven project in Eclipse IDE.

2. Project Directory Structure

The project directory structure for your reference - 

3. Add jar Dependencies to pom.xml

<project
    xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <parent>
        <groupId>net.javaguides.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-tutorial</artifactId>
        <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    </parent>
    <artifactId>hibernate-inheritance-tableperclass</artifactId>
    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/mysql/mysql-connector-java -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>mysql</groupId>
            <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
            <version>8.0.32</version>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.hibernate/hibernate-core -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
            <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
            <version>6.1.7.Final</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <sourceDirectory>src/main/java</sourceDirectory>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.5.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>17</source>
                    <target>17</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

4. Creating the JPA Entities

Let's define the following Account base class:

Account.java

package net.javaguides.hibernate.entity;

import jakarta.persistence.*;

@Entity(name = "Account")
@Inheritance(strategy = InheritanceType.TABLE_PER_CLASS)
public abstract class Account {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;

    private String owner;

    private double balance;

    private double interestRate;

    public Long getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(Long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getOwner() {
        return owner;
    }

    public void setOwner(String owner) {
        this.owner = owner;
    }

    public double getBalance() {
        return balance;
    }

    public void setBalance(double balance) {
        this.balance = balance;
    }

    public double getInterestRate() {
        return interestRate;
    }

    public void setInterestRate(double interestRate) {
        this.interestRate = interestRate;
    }
}

CreditAccount.java

package net.javaguides.hibernate.entity;

import jakarta.persistence.Entity;

@Entity(name = "CreditAccount")
public class CreditAccount extends Account {

    private double creditLimit;

    public double getCreditLimit() {
        return creditLimit;
    }

    public void setCreditLimit(double creditLimit) {
        this.creditLimit = creditLimit;
    }
}

DebitAccount.java

package net.javaguides.hibernate.entity;

import jakarta.persistence.Entity;

@Entity(name = "DebitAccount")
public class DebitAccount extends Account {

    private double overdraftFee;

    public double getOverdraftFee() {
        return overdraftFee;
    }

    public void setOverdraftFee(double overdraftFee) {
        this.overdraftFee = overdraftFee;
    }
}

5. Create a Hibernate configuration file - hibernate.cfg.xml

The configuration file contains information about the database and mapping file. Conventionally, its name should be hibernate.cfg.xml.

Let's create an XML file named hibernate.cfg.xml under the src/main/resources folder and write the following code in it.

<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC
        "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD 3.0//EN"
        "http://www.hibernate.org/dtd/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-configuration>
    <session-factory>
        <!-- JDBC Database connection settings -->
        <property name="connection.driver_class">com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver</property>
        <property name="connection.url">jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/hibernate_db?useSSL=false</property>
        <property name="connection.username">root</property>
        <property name="connection.password">root</property>
        <!-- JDBC connection pool settings ... using built-in test pool -->
        <property name="connection.pool_size">1</property>
        <!-- Echo the SQL to stdout -->
        <property name="show_sql">true</property>
        <!-- Set the current session context -->
        <property name="current_session_context_class">thread</property>
        <!-- Drop and re-create the database schema on startup -->
        <property name="hbm2ddl.auto">create-drop</property>
        <!-- dbcp connection pool configuration -->
        <property name="hibernate.dbcp.initialSize">5</property>
        <property name="hibernate.dbcp.maxTotal">20</property>
        <property name="hibernate.dbcp.maxIdle">10</property>
        <property name="hibernate.dbcp.minIdle">5</property>
        <property name="hibernate.dbcp.maxWaitMillis">-1</property>
        <mapping class="net.javaguides.hibernate.entity.CreditAccount" />
 <mapping class="net.javaguides.hibernate.entity.DebitAccount" />
    </session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>

6. Create a Hibernate Utility Class

Create a helper class to bootstrap hibernate SessionFactory. In most Hibernate applications, the SessionFactory should be instantiated once during application initialization. The single instance should then be used by all code in a particular process, and any Session should be created using this single SessionFactory. The SessionFactory is thread-safe and can be shared; a Session is a single-threaded object.

The bootstrapping API is quite flexible, but in most cases, it makes the most sense to think of it as a 3 step process:

1. Build the StandardServiceRegistry
2. Build the Metadata
3. Use those 2 to build the SessionFactory

package net.javaguides.hibernate.util;

import org.hibernate.SessionFactory;
import org.hibernate.boot.Metadata;
import org.hibernate.boot.MetadataSources;
import org.hibernate.boot.registry.StandardServiceRegistry;
import org.hibernate.boot.registry.StandardServiceRegistryBuilder;

public class HibernateUtil {
    private static StandardServiceRegistry registry;
    private static SessionFactory sessionFactory;

    public static SessionFactory getSessionFactory() {
        if (sessionFactory == null) {
            try {
                // Create registry
                registry = new StandardServiceRegistryBuilder().configure().build();

                // Create MetadataSources
                MetadataSources sources = new MetadataSources(registry);

                // Create Metadata
                Metadata metadata = sources.getMetadataBuilder().build();

                // Create SessionFactory
                sessionFactory = metadata.getSessionFactoryBuilder().build();

            } catch (Exception e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
                if (registry != null) {
                    StandardServiceRegistryBuilder.destroy(registry);
                }
            }
        }
        return sessionFactory;
    }

    public static void shutdown() {
        if (registry != null) {
            StandardServiceRegistryBuilder.destroy(registry);
        }
    }
}

7. Create the main App class and Run an Application

package net.javaguides.hibernate;

import org.hibernate.Session;
import org.hibernate.Transaction;

import net.javaguides.hibernate.entity.Account;
import net.javaguides.hibernate.util.HibernateUtil;

public class App {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Transaction transaction = null;
        try (Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().openSession()) {
            // start a transaction
            transaction = session.beginTransaction();
            // save the account object
            Account account = new Account();
            account.setBalance(10000.0);
            account.setInterestRate(10.0);
            account.setOwner("Ramesh");
            session.save(account);

            // commit transaction
            transaction.commit();
        }
        HibernateUtil.shutdown();
    }
}

Since we used the JOINED inheritance strategy, all subclasses and superclass have their own table.

CREATE TABLE Account (
    id BIGINT NOT NULL ,
    balance NUMERIC(19, 2) ,
    interestRate NUMERIC(19, 2) ,
    owner VARCHAR(255) ,
    PRIMARY KEY ( id )
)

CREATE TABLE CreditAccount (
    id BIGINT NOT NULL ,
    balance NUMERIC(19, 2) ,
    interestRate NUMERIC(19, 2) ,
    owner VARCHAR(255) ,
    creditLimit NUMERIC(19, 2) ,
    PRIMARY KEY ( id )
)

CREATE TABLE DebitAccount (
    id BIGINT NOT NULL ,
    balance NUMERIC(19, 2) ,
    interestRate NUMERIC(19, 2) ,
    owner VARCHAR(255) ,
    overdraftFee NUMERIC(19, 2) ,
    PRIMARY KEY ( id )
)

GitHub Repository

The complete source code of this article is available on my GitHub Repository - https://github.com/RameshMF/Hibernate-ORM-Tutorials

Conclusion

In this article, we have looked into Hibernate/JPA table per class inheritance. You can check out below remaining three inheritance strategies: 

• Hibernate/JPA MappedSuperclass Inheritance Example

• Hibernate/JPA Single Table Inheritance Example

• Hibernate JPA Joined Table Inheritance Example

You can learn more about Hibernate ORM Framework at Hibernate Tutorial

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