Designing Hibernate classes with tables

Question

I'm new to hibernate and trying to understand what is the correct way to implement and use it.

Creates tables and then use a tool to generate Hibernate classes

or

Build the classes and create the tables

Our's is a legacy application, so the tables structure is already there..We are just creating the Hibernate classes and using them...

Can someone let me know which is correct and effecient way?

Answer 1

You have automated tools for both sides. create the classes from a legacy database:

you should use this if you have a runnig database already.netbeans have one of these.

create the tables and relations from entity and embedded clasess:

this way you have to use anotations or a xml file to describe the relations betwen clases and other relational stuff and set table generation strategy to create in the persistence unit the tables will be created automatically usigng the names of the classes for the table and the names of the fields for the columns.

If you already have the database use the tool to generate entity classes

Answer 2

If you use Eclipse then here is a tool to generate POJOs from existing tables: step by step auto code generation using eclipse plugin

If you are using Intellij check out Intellij Java Persistence API & Hibernate