Create JPA Project in Eclipse IDE

This tutorial will show to build a JPA Project manually without any JPA Eclipse plugin.

1. Create a Java Project.  

     
    Your will see the project structure as below image

2. Create "META-INF" directory in "src" directory. Right Click "src" => New => Folder. Make sure Folder name with "META-INF". Click "Finish" button.

3. Create "persistence.xml" file in "META-INF" directory. Right Click "META-INF" => New => File. Put the file name like "persistence.xml". Click "Finish" button.

4. Copy the following content into "persistence.xml" file. The content is for only EclipseLink Persistence Provider and MySQL Database.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <persistence version="2.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd">   <persistence-unit name="METADATA_JPA" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">     <provider>org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider</provider>     <properties>       <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.url" value="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/metadatajpa"/>       <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.user" value="metadatajpa"/>         <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.password" value="metadatajpa"/>       <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.driver" value="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"/>         </properties>   </persistence-unit> </persistence>

5. Create library directory for the project. Right Click the project => New => Folder. Name the folder name as "lib". Click "Finish" button.

6. Put the following jar files into "lib" directory.

1. javax.persistence_2.x.x.jar
2. eclipselink-2.5.0.jar
3. mysql-connector-java-5.1.6-bin.jar 

7. Set the jar files into the "Class-Path". At Step-6, it is just put the jar files into "lib" directory. It is not in the "Class-Path".  Right Click the project => Properties => Java Build Path => Libraries Tab => Click "Add JARs" button.

8. Select the all of jar files form "lib" directory. Click "OK" button.

9. Create an entity class. Right Click "src" => New => Class.

    For example : Class Name => Person, Package Name => org.metadata.jee.jpa.entities.

   Put some of the fields and getter/setter for Person Entity.

package org.metadata.jee.jpa.entities; import javax.persistence.Entity; import javax.persistence.Id; @Entity public class Person {       @Id       private int id;       private String name;       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;       } }

10. Configure Person Entity in persistence.xml file as below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <persistence version="2.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd">   <persistence-unit name="METADATA_JPA" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">     <provider>org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider</provider>       <class>org.metadata.jee.jpa.entities.Person</class>       <properties>       <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.url" value="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/metadatajpa"/>       <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.user" value="metadatajpa"/>         <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.password" value="metadatajpa"/>       <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.driver" value="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"/>         </properties>   </persistence-unit> </persistence>

11. It is finished for environment setup of JPA project. Complete folder structure as below image.