37 Introduction to the Java Persistence API

The Java Persistence API provides Java developers with an object/relational mapping facility for managing relational data in Java applications. Java Persistence consists of four areas:

• The Java Persistence API

• The query language

• The Java Persistence Criteria API

• Object/relational mapping metadata

The following topics are addressed here:

• Entities

• Entity Inheritance

• Managing Entities

• Querying Entities

• Database Schema Creation

• Further Information about Persistence