Java Data Objects

Overview

JDO has several types of identity. You must select the type of identity to use for each persistent class. An identity class represents an identity value, and its form depends on the type of identity. Each persistent class has an associated identity class that represents a unique identity value for each persistent instance. If you have two instances of identity classes for two persistent instances, they will compare equal if and only if the persistent instances have the same JDO identity. JDO provides methods to map between a persistent instance and its associated identity.

JDO Identity Types

JDO defines three types of identity:

Datastore identity

The identity is managed by the JDO implementation or the datastore and is not associated with the values of any fields in the instance.

Application identity

The identity is managed by the application, and its uniqueness is enforced by the JDO implementation or datastore. The identity is composed of one or more fields of the class, referred to as the primary-key fields. The composite value of the primary-key fields must uniquely identify each persistent instance in the datastore. You must define an application identity class with fields that correspond, in name and type, to the primary-key fields in the persistent class.

Nondurable identity

Some datastores do not support a unique identifier for some of their data. For example, a log file or a table in a relational database may not have a primary-key constraint. For the JDO implementation ...