EE5 Travel Center Entities Project

Creating The Persistence Unit and Entity Classes

This package contains Java Persistence Architecture entity classes, and a corresponding persistence unit definition, for the tables found in the Travel Center example database that ships with Creator 2 Update 1, using JavaDB. It was built with NetbBeans 5.5 Beta 2, by using the following steps:

• Using the command line or appropriate menu option, start the copy of Derby that shipped with Creator 2 Update 1, which listens on port 21527.
• Select the Runtime tab, right click on Databases, and select the New Connection ... option.
• Fill out the following properties in the dialog and click OK:
  • Name: Java DB (Net)
  • Driver: (leave default)
  • Database URL: jdbc:derby://localhost:21527/sample
  • Username: travel
  • Password: travel
• You should now see a new connection for this database under the Databases node. Expand it, expand tables, right click on the PERSON table, and select the View Data option. You should see a new window open with rows from the PERSON table.
• From the main menu, select File --> New File ... then select category Persistence, and file type Persistence Unit
• Fill out the following properties in the dialog and click FINISH:
  • Persistence Unit Name: travel
  • Persistence Library: TopLink
  • Database Connection: jdbc:derby://localhost:21527/sample [travel on TRAVEL]
  • Table Generation Strategy: create
• NetBeans will create a persistence.xml configuration file for the new persistence unit, and open it.
• From the main menu, select File --> New File ... then select category Persistence and file type Entity Classes From Database.
• In the Projects tab, right click on the EE5TravelEntities node and select Clean and Build Project.

At this point, we have a set of entity classes that correspond to each of the tables in the Travel Center database. It would be possible to customize things along the way, or to add additional custom methods -- but those can be left for later development.

This library of entity classes can now be used in a variety of different ways. Additional projects will demonstrate using these classes:

• Accessed directly from page beans (similar to how Creator 2 uses cached rowsets to mediate access to the database).
• Accessed indirectly from a plain old JavaBean containing business logic, but which receives resource injection if it is a JSF managed bean.
• Accessed indirectly from an EJB3 session bean.
• Accessed indirectly from a JAX-WS web service.

To achieve these objectives, a business logic bean Logic.java was hand created in the ee5travel.logic package. This allows the development of a single copy of the actual modification logic, which can then be reused in the above scenarios.

Defining a JDBC Data Source In Glassfish

As supplied, the persistence unit in this project specifies that a JDBC data source named "jdbc/travel" be used to access the data. Before you can deploy an application that uses these classes, then, you must do a one-time configuration of this data source in the Glassfish instance you will be deploying to. This configuration is accomplished using the administration console for the server, as follows:

• On the Runtime tab, ensure that the Glassfish instance is running.
• Right click on the Glassfish instance, and select View Admin Console.
• Log in to the admin console, and navigate to the Resources --> JDBC --> Connection Pools page.
• Press the New button, fill out the following settings on the first page, and press Next:
  • Name: TravelCenterPool
  • Resource Type: javax.sql.DataSource
  • Database Vendor: Derby
• On the second page, scroll down to the Additional Properties section, and customize the following values (the values shown below assume you are using the Derby instance from Creator 2 Update 1), then press Finish:
  • PortNumber: 21527
  • User: travel
  • Password: travel
  • ServerName: localhost
  • DatabaseName: sample
• You will be returned to the Connection Pool list page. Click on the new TravelCenterPool entry to see the settings, and press the Ping button to ensure that you can successfully connect to the database (which must be up and running for this to work). If the ping is not successful, edit any settings that need to be changed, and press Save.
• Now, navigate to the Resources --> JDBC --> JDBC Resources page.
• Press the New button, and fill out the following values and press OK:
  • JNDI Name: jdbc/travel
  • Pool Name: TravelCenterPool
  • Status: Leave the "enabled" box checked
• Your new JDBC data source is now configured and available for any application that wants to use it.