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# Object-Relational Structure Mapping

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In an object-relational data model, structures are user-defined data types or object types. This is similar to a Java class–it defines attributes or fields in which each attribute is one of the following:

- A primitive data type

- Another structure

- Reference to another structure

TopLink maps nested structures with the `StructureMapping` class. The structure mapping supports null values and shared aggregates without requiring additional settings (because of the object-relational support of the database).

See "Configuring an Object-Relational Structure Mapping" for more information.