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In the previous article, we have seen JSP Servlet JDBC MySQL CRUD Example Tutorial.

In this article, we are building a simple User Management web application using JSP, Servlet, and Hibernate. This web application manages a collection of users with the basic feature: list, insert, update, delete (or CURD operations - Create, Update, Read and Delete).

In this article, we will use Hibernate Java-based configuration without using hibernate.cfg.xml to connect MySQL database.

Check out the below articles to know more about Hibernate XML and Java-based configurations:

Hibernate 5 XML Configuration Example - In this article, we will show you how to create a Hibernate Application using hibernate.cfg.xml configuration to connect MySQL database.

Hibernate 5 Java Configuration Example - In this article, we will show you how to create a Hibernate Application using Java configuration without using hibernate.cfg.xml to connect MySQL database.

Hibernate Configurations Quick References [Snippets] - This post is a quick reference to Hibernate XML or Java-based configuration.

Video Tutorial

This tutorial is explained in below YouTube video. Subscribe to my youtube channel to learn more about Spring boot at Java Guides - YouTube Channel.

What is Hibernate Framework?

Hibernate is an Object/Relational Mapping solution for Java environments. Object-relational mapping or ORM is the programming technique to map application domain model objects to the relational database tables. Hibernate is a Java-based ORM tool that provides a framework for mapping application domain objects to the relational database tables and vice versa.

Hibernate provides an implementation of the Java Persistence API, which makes it a great choice as an ORM tool with the benefits of loose coupling. We can use the Hibernate persistence API for CRUD operations. Hibernate framework provides an option to map plain old java objects to traditional database tables with the use of JPA annotations as well as XML-based configuration.

Read everything about Hibernate framework at Hibernate Framework Tutorial.

What is JPA?

The Java Persistence API (JPA) is the Java standard for mapping Java objects to a relational database. Mapping Java objects to database tables and vice versa is called Object-relational mapping (ORM).

JPA defines only specifications, it does not provide an implementation.

In this article, we will use the hibernate framework as a JPA provider or implementation.

Read everything about Hibernate framework at Java Persistence API (JPA).

Top JSP, Servlet, and HibernateTutorials:

Servlet Tutorial

JSP Tutorial

Hibernate Tutorial

You can download the source code of this tutorial from my GitHub repository and the link is given at the end of this tutorial.

JSP Servlet Hibernate Web Application

We will develop below simple basic features in our User Management web application:

Create a User
Update a User
Delete a User
Retrieve a User
List of all Users

The application looks something like this:

Tools and technologies used

JSP - 2.2 +
Hibernate - 5+
IDE - STS/Eclipse Neon.3
JDK - 1.8 or later
Apache Tomcat - 8.5
JSTL - 1.2.1
Servlet API - 2.5
MySQL - mysql-connector-java-8.0.13.jar

Development Steps

Create an Eclipse Dynamic Web Project
Add Dependencies
Project Structure
MySQL Database Setup
Create a JPA entity - User.java
Hibernate Java-based configuration
Create a UserDAO.java
Create a UserServlet.java
Creating User Listing JSP Page - user-list.jsp
Create a User Form JSP Page - user-form.jsp
Creating Error JSP page
Deploying and Testing the Application Demo

1. Create an Eclipse Dynamic Web Project

To create a new dynamic Web project in Eclipse:

1. On the main menu select File > New > Project....

2. In the upcoming wizard choose Web > Dynamic Web Project.

3. Click Next.

4. Enter project name as "jsp-servlet-hibernate-mysql-example";
5. Make sure that the target runtime is set to Apache Tomcat with the currently supported version.

2. Add Dependencies

Add the latest release of below jar files to the lib folder:

You can download all these JAR files from my GitHub repository - jsp-servlet-hibernate-mysql-tutorial

3. Project Structure

Standard project structure for your reference -

4. MySQL Database Setup

Let's create a database named "demo" in MySQL. Now, create a users table using below DDL script:

CREATE DATABASE 'demo';
USE demo;

create table users (
 id  int(3) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
 name varchar(120) NOT NULL,
 email varchar(220) NOT NULL,
 country varchar(120),
 PRIMARY KEY (id)
);

You can use either MySQL Command Line Client or MySQL Workbench tool to create the database. The above a users table looks like this:

5. Create a JPA Entity - User.java

Let's create a User persistent class that is mapped to a database table - users.

A simple Persistent class should follow some rules:

A no-arg constructor: It is recommended that you have a default constructor with at least package visibility so that hibernate can create the instance of the Persistent class by newInstance() method.
Provide an identifier property: It is better to assign an attribute as an id. This attribute behaves as a primary key in a database.
Declare getter and setter methods: The Hibernate recognizes the method by getter and setter method names by default.
Prefer non-final class: Hibernate uses the concept of proxies, which depends on the persistent class. The application programmer will not be able to use proxies for lazy association fetching.

package net.javaguides.usermanagement.model;

import javax.persistence.Column;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import javax.persistence.GenerationType;
import javax.persistence.Id;
import javax.persistence.Table;

/**
 * User.java
 * This is a model class represents a User entity
 * @author Ramesh Fadatare
 *
 */

@Entity
@Table(name="instructor")
public class User {
 
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    @Column(name="id")
    protected int id;
 
    @Column(name="name")
    protected String name;
 
    @Column(name="email")
    protected String email;
 
    @Column(name="country")
    protected String country;
 
    public User() {
    }
 
    public User(String name, String email, String country) {
        super();
        this.name = name;
        this.email = email;
        this.country = country;
    }

    public User(int id, String name, String email, String country) {
        super();
        this.id = id;
        this.name = name;
        this.email = email;
        this.country = country;
    }

    public int getId() {
        return id;
    }
    public void setId(int id) {
        this.id = id;
    }
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }
    public String getEmail() {
        return email;
    }
    public void setEmail(String email) {
        this.email = email;
    }
    public String getCountry() {
        return country;
    }
    public void setCountry(String country) {
        this.country = country;
    } 
}

6. Hibernate Java-based configuration

Below diagram shows Java code for Hibernate settings equivalent to hibernate.cfg.xml's properties:

ServiceRegistry holds the services that Hibernate will need during bootstrapping and at runtime.
StandardServiceRegistryBuilder - Builder for standard ServiceRegistry instances.
HibernateUtil - This is 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.

Here is the complete code:

package net.javaguides.usermanagement.utl;

import java.util.Properties;

import org.hibernate.SessionFactory;
import org.hibernate.boot.registry.StandardServiceRegistryBuilder;
import org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration;
import org.hibernate.cfg.Environment;
import org.hibernate.service.ServiceRegistry;

import net.javaguides.usermanagement.model.User;

/**
 * Java based configuration
 * @author ramesh Fadatare
 *
 */
public class HibernateUtil {
    private static SessionFactory sessionFactory;

    public static SessionFactory getSessionFactory() {
         if (sessionFactory == null) {
            try {
                 Configuration configuration = new Configuration();

                 // Hibernate settings equivalent to hibernate.cfg.xml's properties
                 Properties settings = new Properties();
                 settings.put(Environment.DRIVER, "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
                 settings.put(Environment.URL, "jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/demo?useSSL=false");
                 settings.put(Environment.USER, "root");
                 settings.put(Environment.PASS, "root");
                 settings.put(Environment.DIALECT, "org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5Dialect");

                 settings.put(Environment.SHOW_SQL, "true");

                 settings.put(Environment.CURRENT_SESSION_CONTEXT_CLASS, "thread");

                 settings.put(Environment.HBM2DDL_AUTO, "create-drop");

                 configuration.setProperties(settings);
                 configuration.addAnnotatedClass(User.class);

                 ServiceRegistry serviceRegistry = new StandardServiceRegistryBuilder()
                 .applySettings(configuration.getProperties()).build();
                 System.out.println("Hibernate Java Config serviceRegistry created");
                 sessionFactory = configuration.buildSessionFactory(serviceRegistry);
                 return sessionFactory;

              } catch (Exception e) {
                 e.printStackTrace();
              }
          }
        return sessionFactory;
    }
}

7. Create a UserDAO.java

Let's create a UserDAO class which is a Data Access Layer (DAO) class that provides CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations using for the users table in a database using Hibernate. Here’s the full source code of the UserDAO:

package net.javaguides.usermanagement.dao;

import java.util.List;

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

import net.javaguides.usermanagement.model.User;
import net.javaguides.usermanagement.utl.HibernateUtil;

/**
 * CRUD database operations
 * @author Ramesh Fadatare
 *
 */
public class UserDao {

    /**
     * Save User
     * @param user
     */
    public void saveUser(User user) {
        Transaction transaction = null;
        try (Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().openSession()) {
            // start a transaction
            transaction = session.beginTransaction();
            // save the student object
            session.save(user);
            // commit transaction
            transaction.commit();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            if (transaction != null) {
                transaction.rollback();
            }
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    /**
     * Update User
     * @param user
     */
    public void updateUser(User user) {
        Transaction transaction = null;
        try (Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().openSession()) {
            // start a transaction
            transaction = session.beginTransaction();
            // save the student object
            session.update(user);
            // commit transaction
            transaction.commit();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            if (transaction != null) {
                transaction.rollback();
            }
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    /**
     * Delete User
     * @param id
     */
    public void deleteUser(int id) {

        Transaction transaction = null;
        try (Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().openSession()) {
            // start a transaction
            transaction = session.beginTransaction();

            // Delete a user object
            User user = session.get(User.class, id);
            if (user != null) {
                session.delete(user);
                System.out.println("user is deleted");
            }

            // commit transaction
            transaction.commit();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            if (transaction != null) {
                transaction.rollback();
            }
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    /**
     * Get User By ID
     * @param id
     * @return
     */
    public User getUser(int id) {

        Transaction transaction = null;
        User user = null;
        try (Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().openSession()) {
            // start a transaction
            transaction = session.beginTransaction();
            // get an user object
            user = session.get(User.class, id);
            // commit transaction
            transaction.commit();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            if (transaction != null) {
                transaction.rollback();
            }
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return user;
    }

    /**
     * Get all Users
     * @return
     */
    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    public List < User > getAllUser() {

        Transaction transaction = null;
        List < User > listOfUser = null;
        try (Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().openSession()) {
            // start a transaction
            transaction = session.beginTransaction();
            // get an user object

            listOfUser = session.createQuery("from User").getResultList();

            // commit transaction
            transaction.commit();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            if (transaction != null) {
                transaction.rollback();
            }
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return listOfUser;
    }
}

8. Create a UserServlet.java

Now, let's create a UserServlet that acts as a page controller to handle all requests from the client.

Let’s look at the code first:

package net.javaguides.usermanagement.web;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.util.List;

import javax.servlet.RequestDispatcher;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import net.javaguides.usermanagement.dao.UserDao;
import net.javaguides.usermanagement.model.User;

/**
 * ControllerServlet.java
 * This servlet acts as a page controller for the application, handling all
 * requests from the user.
 * @email Ramesh Fadatare
 */

@WebServlet("/")
public class UserServlet extends HttpServlet {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1 L;
    private UserDao userDao;

    public void init() {
        userDao = new UserDao();
    }

    protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws ServletException, IOException {
        doGet(request, response);
    }

    protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws ServletException, IOException {
        String action = request.getServletPath();

        try {
            switch (action) {
                case "/new":
                    showNewForm(request, response);
                    break;
                case "/insert":
                    insertUser(request, response);
                    break;
                case "/delete":
                    deleteUser(request, response);
                    break;
                case "/edit":
                    showEditForm(request, response);
                    break;
                case "/update":
                    updateUser(request, response);
                    break;
                default:
                    listUser(request, response);
                    break;
            }
        } catch (SQLException ex) {
            throw new ServletException(ex);
        }
    }

    private void listUser(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws SQLException, IOException, ServletException {
        List < User > listUser = userDao.getAllUser();
        request.setAttribute("listUser", listUser);
        RequestDispatcher dispatcher = request.getRequestDispatcher("user-list.jsp");
        dispatcher.forward(request, response);
    }

    private void showNewForm(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws ServletException, IOException {
        RequestDispatcher dispatcher = request.getRequestDispatcher("user-form.jsp");
        dispatcher.forward(request, response);
    }

    private void showEditForm(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws SQLException, ServletException, IOException {
        int id = Integer.parseInt(request.getParameter("id"));
        User existingUser = userDao.getUser(id);
        RequestDispatcher dispatcher = request.getRequestDispatcher("user-form.jsp");
        request.setAttribute("user", existingUser);
        dispatcher.forward(request, response);

    }

    private void insertUser(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws SQLException, IOException {
        String name = request.getParameter("name");
        String email = request.getParameter("email");
        String country = request.getParameter("country");
        User newUser = new User(name, email, country);
        userDao.saveUser(newUser);
        response.sendRedirect("list");
    }

    private void updateUser(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws SQLException, IOException {
        int id = Integer.parseInt(request.getParameter("id"));
        String name = request.getParameter("name");
        String email = request.getParameter("email");
        String country = request.getParameter("country");

        User user = new User(id, name, email, country);
        userDao.updateUser(user);
        response.sendRedirect("list");
    }

    private void deleteUser(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws SQLException, IOException {
        int id = Integer.parseInt(request.getParameter("id"));
        userDao.deleteUser(id);
        response.sendRedirect("list");
    }
}

9. Creating User Listing JSP Page - user-list.jsp

Next, create a JSP page for displaying all users from the database.

Let's create a list-user.jsp page under the WebContent directory in the project with the following code:

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8"
    pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<html>
<head>
 <title>User Management Application</title>
</head>
<body>
 <center>
  <h1>User Management</h1>
        <h2>
         <a href="new">Add New User</a>
         &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
         <a href="list">List All Users</a>
         
        </h2>
 </center>
    <div align="center">
        <table border="1" cellpadding="5">
            <caption><h2>List of Users</h2></caption>
            <tr>
                <th>ID</th>
                <th>Name</th>
                <th>Email</th>
                <th>Country</th>
                <th>Actions</th>
            </tr>
            <c:forEach var="user" items="${listUser}">
                <tr>
                    <td><c:out value="${user.id}" /></td>
                    <td><c:out value="${user.name}" /></td>
                    <td><c:out value="${user.email}" /></td>
                    <td><c:out value="${user.country}" /></td>
                    <td>
                     <a href="edit?id=<c:out value='${user.id}' />">Edit</a>
                     &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
                     <a href="delete?id=<c:out value='${user.id}' />">Delete</a>                     
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </c:forEach>
        </table>
    </div> 
</body>
</html>

Once you will deploy the above JSP page in tomcat and open it in the browser looks something like this:

10. Create a User Form JSP Page - user-form.jsp

Next, we create a JSP page for creating a new User called user-form.jsp. Here’s its full source code:

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8"
    pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<html>
<head>
 <title>User Management Application</title>
</head>
<body>
 <center>
  <h1>User Management</h1>
        <h2>
         <a href="new">Add New User</a>
         &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
         <a href="list">List All Users</a>
         
        </h2>
 </center>
    <div align="center">
  <c:if test="${user != null}">
   <form action="update" method="post">
        </c:if>
        <c:if test="${user == null}">
   <form action="insert" method="post">
        </c:if>
        <table border="1" cellpadding="5">
            <caption>
             <h2>
              <c:if test="${user != null}">
               Edit User
              </c:if>
              <c:if test="${user == null}">
               Add New User
              </c:if>
             </h2>
            </caption>
          <c:if test="${user != null}">
           <input type="hidden" name="id" value="<c:out value='${user.id}' />" />
          </c:if>            
            <tr>
                <th>User Name: </th>
                <td>
                 <input type="text" name="name" size="45"
                   value="<c:out value='${user.name}' />"
                  />
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>User Email: </th>
                <td>
                 <input type="text" name="email" size="45"
                   value="<c:out value='${user.email}' />"
                 />
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Country: </th>
                <td>
                 <input type="text" name="country" size="15"
                   value="<c:out value='${user.country}' />"
                 />
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
             <td colspan="2" align="center">
              <input type="submit" value="Save" />
             </td>
            </tr>
        </table>
        </form>
    </div> 
</body>
</html>

Once you will deploy the above JSP page in tomcat and open it in the browser looks something like this:

The above page acts for both functionalities to create a new User and Edit the same user. The edit page looks like this:

11. Creating Error JSP page

Here’s the code of the Error.jsp page which simply shows the exception message:

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8"
    pageEncoding="UTF-8" isErrorPage="true" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
 "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Error</title>
</head>
<body>
 <center>
  <h1>Error</h1>
  <h2><%=exception.getMessage() %><br/> </h2>
 </center> 
</body>
</html>