Java FAQ's

Q: What is the difference between an Interface and an Abstract class?
A: An abstract class can have instance methods that implement a default behavior. An Interface can only declare constants and instance methods, but cannot implement default behavior and all methods are implicitly abstract. An interface has all public members and no implementation. An abstract class is a class which may have the usual flavors of class members (private, protected, etc.), but has some abstract methods.

Q: What is the purpose of garbage collection in Java, and when is it used?
A: The purpose of garbage collection is to identify and discard objects that are no longer needed by a program so that their resources can be reclaimed and reused. A Java object is subject to garbage collection when it becomes unreachable to the program in which it is used.

Q: Describe synchronization in respect to multithreading.
A: With respect to multithreading, synchronization is the capability to control the access of multiple threads to shared resources. Without synchonization, it is possible for one thread to modify a shared variable while another thread is in the process of using or updating same shared variable. This usually leads to significant errors.

Q: Explain different way of using thread?
A: The thread could be implemented by using runnable interface or by inheriting from the Thread class. The former is more advantageous, 'cause when you are going for multiple inheritance..the only interface can help.

Q: What are pass by reference and passby value?
A: Pass By Reference means the passing the address itself rather than passing the value. Passby Value means passing a copy of the value to be passed.

Q: What is HashMap and Map?
A: Map is Interface and Hashmap is class that implements that.

Q: Difference between HashMap and HashTable?
A: The HashMap class is roughly equivalent to Hashtable, except that it is unsynchronized and permits nulls. (HashMap allows null values as key and value whereas Hashtable doesnt allow). HashMap does not guarantee that the order of the map will remain constant over time. HashMap is unsynchronized and Hashtable is synchronized.

Q: Difference between Vector and ArrayList?
A: Vector is synchronized whereas arraylist is not.

Q: Difference between Swing and Awt?
A: AWT are heavy-weight componenets. Swings are light-weight components. Hence swing works faster than AWT.

Q: What is the difference between a constructor and a method?
A: A constructor is a member function of a class that is used to create objects of that class. It has the same name as the class itself, has no return type, and is invoked using the new operator.
A method is an ordinary member function of a class. It has its own name, a return type (which may be void), and is invoked using the dot operator.

Q: What is an Iterator?
A: Some of the collection classes provide traversal of their contents via a java.util.Iterator interface. This interface allows you to walk through a collection of objects, operating on each object in turn. Remember when using Iterators that they contain a snapshot of the collection at the time the Iterator was obtained; generally it is not advisable to modify the collection itself while traversing an Iterator.

Q: State the significance of public, private, protected, default modifiers both singly and in combination and state the effect of package relationships on declared items qualified by these modifiers.
A: public : Public class is visible in other packages, field is visible everywhere (class must be public too)
private : Private variables or methods may be used only by an instance of the same class that declares the variable or method, A private feature may only be accessed by the class that owns the feature.
protected : Is available to all classes in the same package and also available to all subclasses of the class that owns the protected feature.This access is provided even to subclasses that reside in a different package from the class that owns the protected feature.
default :What you get by default ie, without any access modifier (ie, public private or protected).It means that it is visible to all within a particular package.

Q: What is an abstract class?
A: Abstract class must be extended/subclassed (to be useful). It serves as a template. A class that is abstract may not be instantiated (ie, you may not call its constructor), abstract class may contain static data. Any class with an abstract method is automatically abstract itself, and must be declared as such.
A class may be declared abstract even if it has no abstract methods. This prevents it from being instantiated.

Q: What is static in java?
A: Static means one per class, not one for each object no matter how many instance of a class might exist. This means that you can use them without creating an instance of a class.Static methods are implicitly final, because overriding is done based on the type of the object, and static methods are attached to a class, not an object. A static method in a superclass can be shadowed by another static method in a subclass, as long as the original method was not declared final. However, you can't override a static method with a nonstatic method. In other words, you can't change a static method into an instance method in a subclass.

Q: What is final?
A: A final class can't be extended ie., final class may not be subclassed. A final method can't be overridden when its class is inherited. You can't change value of a final variable (is a constant).

Q: What if the main method is declared as private?
A: The program compiles properly but at runtime it will give "Main method not public." message.

Q: What if the static modifier is removed from the signature of the main method?
A: Program compiles. But at runtime throws an error "NoSuchMethodError".

Q: What if I write static public void instead of public static void?
A: Program compiles and runs properly.

Q: What if I do not provide the String array as the argument to the method?
A: Program compiles but throws a runtime error "NoSuchMethodError".


Q: What is the first argument of the String array in main method?
A: The String array is empty. It does not have any element. This is unlike C/C++ where the first element by default is the program name.

Q: If I do not provide any arguments on the command line, then the String array of Main method will be empty or null?
A: It is empty. But not null.

Q: How can one prove that the array is not null but empty using one line of code?
A: Print args.length. It will print 0. That means it is empty. But if it would have been null then it would have thrown a NullPointerException on attempting to print args.length.

Q: Can an application have multiple classes having main method?
A: Yes it is possible. While starting the application we mention the class name to be run. The JVM will look for the Main method only in the class whose name you have mentioned. Hence there is not conflict amongst the multiple classes having main method.

Q: Can I have multiple main methods in the same class?
A: No the program fails to compile. The compiler says that the main method is already defined in the class.


Q: Do I need to import java.lang package any time? Why ?
A: No. It is by default loaded internally by the JVM.

Q: Can I import same package/class twice? Will the JVM load the package twice at runtime?
A: One can import the same package or same class multiple times. Neither compiler nor JVM complains abt it. And the JVM will internally load the class only once no matter how many times you import the same class.
Q: What are Checked and UnChecked Exception?
A: A checked exception is some subclass of Exception (or Exception itself), excluding class RuntimeException and its subclasses.
Making an exception checked forces client programmers to deal with the possibility that the exception will be thrown. eg, IOException thrown by java.io.FileInputStream's read() method•
Unchecked exceptions are RuntimeException and any of its subclasses. Class Error and its subclasses also are unchecked. With an unchecked exception, however, the compiler doesn't force client programmers either to catch the
exception or declare it in a throws clause. In fact, client programmers may not even know that the exception could be thrown. eg, StringIndexOutOfBoundsException thrown by String's charAt() method• Checked exceptions must be caught at compile time. Runtime exceptions do not need to be. Errors often cannot be.
Q: What is Overriding?
A: When a class defines a method using the same name, return type, and arguments as a method in its superclass, the method in the class overrides the method in the superclass.
When the method is invoked for an object of the class, it is the new definition of the method that is called, and not the method definition from superclass. Methods may be overridden to be more public, not more private.
Q: Are the imports checked for validity at compile time? e.g. will the code containing an import such as java.lang.ABCD compile?
A: Yes the imports are checked for the semantic validity at compile time. The code containing above line of import will not compile. It will throw an error saying,can not resolve symbol
symbol : class ABCD
location: package io
import java.io.ABCD;
Q: Does importing a package imports the subpackages as well? e.g. Does importing com.MyTest.* also import com.MyTest.UnitTests.*?
A: No you will have to import the subpackages explicitly. Importing com.MyTest.* will import classes in the package MyTest only. It will not import any class in any of it's subpackage.
Q: What is the difference between declaring a variable and defining a variable?
A: In declaration we just mention the type of the variable and it's name. We do not initialize it. But defining means declaration + initialization.
e.g String s; is just a declaration while String s = new String ("abcd"); Or String s = "abcd"; are both definitions.
Q: What is the default value of an object reference declared as an instance variable?
A: null unless we define it explicitly.
Q: Can a top level class be private or protected?
A: No. A top level class can not be private or protected. It can have either "public" or no modifier. If it does not have a modifier it is supposed to have a default access.If a top level class is declared as private the compiler will complain that the "modifier private is not allowed here". This means that a top level class can not be private. Same is the case with protected.
Q: What type of parameter passing does Java support?
A: In Java the arguments are always passed by value .
Q: Primitive data types are passed by reference or pass by value?
A: Primitive data types are passed by value.
Q: Objects are passed by value or by reference?
A: Java only supports pass by value. With objects, the object reference itself is passed by value and so both the original reference and parameter copy both refer to the same object .
Q: What is serialization?
A: Serialization is a mechanism by which you can save the state of an object by converting it to a byte stream.
Q: How do I serialize an object to a file?
A: The class whose instances are to be serialized should implement an interface Serializable. Then you pass the instance to the ObjectOutputStream which is connected to a fileoutputstream. This will save the object to a file.
Q: Which methods of Serializable interface should I implement?
A: The serializable interface is an empty interface, it does not contain any methods. So we do not implement any methods.
Q: How can I customize the seralization process? i.e. how can one have a control over the serialization process?
A: Yes it is possible to have control over serialization process. The class should implement Externalizable interface. This interface contains two methods namely readExternal and writeExternal. You should implement these methods and write the logic for customizing the serialization process.
Q: What is the common usage of serialization?
A: Whenever an object is to be sent over the network, objects need to be serialized. Moreover if the state of an object is to be saved, objects need to be serilazed.
Q: What is Externalizable interface?
A: Externalizable is an interface which contains two methods readExternal and writeExternal. These methods give you a control over the serialization mechanism. Thus if your class implements this interface, you can customize the serialization process by implementing these methods.
Q: When you serialize an object, what happens to the object references included in the object?
A: The serialization mechanism generates an object graph for serialization. Thus it determines whether the included object references are serializable or not. This is a recursive process. Thus when an object is serialized, all the included objects are also serialized alongwith the original obect.
Q: What one should take care of while serializing the object?
A: One should make sure that all the included objects are also serializable. If any of the objects is not serializable then it throws a NotSerializableException.
Q: What happens to the static fields of a class during serialization?
A: There are three exceptions in which serialization doesnot necessarily read and write to the stream. These are
1. Serialization ignores static fields, because they are not part of ay particular state state.
2. Base class fields are only hendled if the base class itself is serializable.
3. Transient fields.
Q: Does Java provide any construct to find out the size of an object?
A: No there is not sizeof operator in Java. So there is not direct way to determine the size of an object directly in Java.
Q: Give a simplest way to find out the time a method takes for execution without using any profiling tool?
A: Read the system time just before the method is invoked and immediately after method returns. Take the time difference, which will give you the time taken by a method for execution.
To put it in code...
long start = System.currentTimeMillis ();
method ();
long end = System.currentTimeMillis ();
System.out.println ("Time taken for execution is " + (end - start));
Remember that if the time taken for execution is too small, it might show that it is taking zero milliseconds for execution. Try it on a method which is big enough, in the sense the one which is doing considerable amout of processing.
Q: What are wrapper classes?
A: Java provides specialized classes corresponding to each of the primitive data types. These are called wrapper classes. They are e.g. Integer, Character, Double etc.
Q: Why do we need wrapper classes?
A: It is sometimes easier to deal with primitives as objects. Moreover most of the collection classes store objects and not primitive data types. And also the wrapper classes provide many utility methods also. Because of these resons we need wrapper classes. And since we create instances of these classes we can store them in any of the collection classes and pass them around as a collection. Also we can pass them around as method parameters where a method expects an object.
Q: What are checked exceptions?
A: Checked exception are those which the Java compiler forces you to catch. e.g. IOException are checked Exceptions.
Q: What are runtime exceptions?
A: Runtime exceptions are those exceptions that are thrown at runtime because of either wrong input data or because of wrong business logic etc. These are not checked by the compiler at compile time.
Q: What is the difference between error and an exception?
A: An error is an irrecoverable condition occurring at runtime. Such as OutOfMemory error. These JVM errors and you can not repair them at runtime. While exceptions are conditions that occur because of bad input etc. e.g. FileNotFoundException will be thrown if the specified file does not exist. Or a NullPointerException will take place if you try using a null reference. In most of the cases it is possible to recover from an exception (probably by giving user a feedback for entering proper values etc.).
Q: How to create custom exceptions?
A: Your class should extend class Exception, or some more specific type thereof.
Q: If I want an object of my class to be thrown as an exception object, what should I do?
A: The class should extend from Exception class. Or you can extend your class from some more precise exception type also.
Q: If my class already extends from some other class what should I do if I want an instance of my class to be thrown as an exception object?
A: One can not do anytihng in this scenarion. Because Java does not allow multiple inheritance and does not provide any exception interface as well.
Q: How does an exception permeate through the code?
A: An unhandled exception moves up the method stack in search of a matching When an exception is thrown from a code which is wrapped in a try block followed by one or more catch blocks, a search is made for matching catch block. If a matching type is found then that block will be invoked. If a matching type is not found then the exception moves up the method stack and reaches the caller method. Same procedure is repeated if the caller method is included in a try catch block. This process continues until a catch block handling the appropriate type of exception is found. If it does not find such a block then finally the program terminates.
Q: What are the different ways to handle exceptions?
A: There are two ways to handle exceptions,
1. By wrapping the desired code in a try block followed by a catch block to catch the exceptions. and
2. List the desired exceptions in the throws clause of the method and let the caller of the method hadle those exceptions.
Q: What is the basic difference between the 2 approaches to exception handling.
1> try catch block and
2> specifying the candidate exceptions in the throws clause?
When should you use which approach?
A: In the first approach as a programmer of the method, you urself are dealing with the exception. This is fine if you are in a best position to decide should be done in case of an exception. Whereas if it is not the responsibility of the method to deal with it's own exceptions, then do not use this approach. In this case use the second approach. In the second approach we are forcing the caller of the method to catch the exceptions, that the method is likely to throw. This is often the approach library creators use. They list the exception in the throws clause and we must catch them. You will find the same approach throughout the java libraries we use.
Q: Is it necessary that each try block must be followed by a catch block?
A: It is not necessary that each try block must be followed by a catch block. It should be followed by either a catch block OR a finally block. And whatever exceptions are likely to be thrown should be declared in the throws clause of the method.
Q: If I write return at the end of the try block, will the finally block still execute?
A: Yes even if you write return as the last statement in the try block and no exception occurs, the finally block will execute. The finally block will execute and then the control return.
Q: If I write System.exit (0); at the end of the try block, will the finally block still execute?
A: No in this case the finally block will not execute because when you say System.exit (0); the control immediately goes out of the program, and thus finally never executes.
Q: How are Observer and Observable used?
A: Objects that subclass the Observable class maintain a list of observers. When an Observable object is updated it invokes the update() method of each of its observers to notify the observers that it has changed state. The Observer interface is implemented by objects that observe Observable objects.
Q: What is synchronization and why is it important?
A: With respect to multithreading, synchronization is the capability to control
the access of multiple threads to shared resources. Without synchronization, it is possible for one thread to modify a shared object while another thread is in the process of using or updating that object's value. This often leads to significant errors.
Q: How does Java handle integer overflows and underflows?
A: It uses those low order bytes of the result that can fit into the size of the type allowed by the operation.
Q: Does garbage collection guarantee that a program will not run out of memory?
A: Garbage collection does not guarantee that a program will not run out of memory. It is possible for programs to use up memory resources faster than they are garbage collected. It is also possible for programs to create objects that are not subject to garbage collection
Q: What is the difference between preemptive scheduling and time slicing?
A: Under preemptive scheduling, the highest priority task executes until it enters the waiting or dead states or a higher priority task comes into existence. Under time slicing, a task executes for a predefined slice of time and then reenters the pool of ready tasks. The scheduler then determines which task should execute next, based on priority and other factors.
Q: When a thread is created and started, what is its initial state?
A: A thread is in the ready state after it has been created and started.
Q: What is the purpose of finalization?
A: The purpose of finalization is to give an unreachable object the opportunity to perform any cleanup processing before the object is garbage collected.
Q: What is the Locale class?
A: The Locale class is used to tailor program output to the conventions of a particular geographic, political, or cultural region.
Q: What is the difference between a while statement and a do statement?
A: A while statement checks at the beginning of a loop to see whether the next loop iteration should occur. A do statement checks at the end of a loop to see whether the next iteration of a loop should occur. The do statement will always execute the body of a loop at least once.
Q: What is the difference between static and non-static variables?
A: A static variable is associated with the class as a whole rather than with specific instances of a class. Non-static variables take on unique values with each object instance.
Q: How are this() and super() used with constructors?
A: This() is used to invoke a constructor of the same class. super() is used to invoke a superclass constructor.
Q: What are synchronized methods and synchronized statements?
A: Synchronized methods are methods that are used to control access to an object. A thread only executes a synchronized method after it has acquired the lock for the method's object or class. Synchronized statements are similar to synchronized methods. A synchronized statement can only be executed after a thread has acquired the lock for the object or class referenced in the synchronized statement.
Q: What is daemon thread and which method is used to create the daemon thread?
A: Daemon thread is a low priority thread which runs intermittently in the back ground doing the garbage collection operation for the java runtime system. setDaemon method is used to create a daemon thread.

Hibernate FAQ's

What does hibernate.properties file consist of?
This is a property file that should be placed in application class path. So when the Configuration object is created, hibernate is first initialized. At this moment the application will automatically detect and read this hibernate.properties file.

hibernate.connection.datasource = java:/comp/env/jdbc/AuctionDB
hibernate.transaction.factory_class =
net.sf.hibernate.transaction.JTATransactionFactory
hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class =
net.sf.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup
hibernate.dialect = net.sf.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect

What should SessionFactory be placed so that it can be easily accessed?
As far as it is compared to J2EE environment, if the SessionFactory is placed in JNDI then it can be easily accessed and shared between different threads and various components that are hibernate aware. You can set the SessionFactory to a JNDI by configuring a property hibernate.session_factory_name in the hibernate.properties file.

What are POJOs?
POJO stands for plain old java objects. These are just basic JavaBeans that have defined setter and getter methods for all the properties that are there in that bean. Besides they can also have some business logic related to that property. Hibernate applications works efficiently with POJOs rather then simple java classes.

What is object/relational mapping metadata?
ORM tools require a metadata format for the application to specify the mapping between classes and tables, properties and columns, associations and foreign keys, Java types and SQL types. This information is called the object/relational mapping metadata. It defines the transformation between the different data type systems and relationship representations.

What is HQL?
HQL stands for Hibernate Query Language. Hibernate allows the user to express queries in its own portable SQL extension and this is called as HQL. It also allows the user to express in native SQL.

What are the different types of property and class mappings?
Typical and most common property mapping

Or




Derived properties


Typical and most common property mapping


Controlling inserts and updates
insert="false" update="false"/>

What is Attribute Oriented Programming?
XDoclet has brought the concept of attribute-oriented programming to Java. Until JDK 1.5, the Java language had no support for annotations; now XDoclet uses the Javadoc tag format (@attribute) to specify class-, field-, or method-level metadata attributes. These attributes are used to generate hibernate mapping file automatically when the application is built. This kind of programming that works on attributes is called as Attribute Oriented Programming.

What are the different methods of identifying an object?
There are three methods by which an object can be identified.
Object identity –Objects are identical if they reside in the same memory location in the JVM. This can be checked by using the = = operator.
Object equality – Objects are equal if they have the same value, as defined by the equals( ) method. Classes that don’t explicitly override this method inherit the implementation defined by java.lang.Object, which compares object identity.
Database identity – Objects stored in a relational database are identical if they represent the same row or, equivalently, share the same table and primary key value.

What are the different approaches to represent an inheritance hierarchy?
Table per concrete class.
Table per class hierarchy.
Table per subclass.

What are managed associations and hibernate associations?
Associations that are related to container management persistence are called managed associations. These are bi-directional associations. Coming to hibernate associations, these are unidirectional.

Hibernate FAQ's

What is a hibernate xml mapping document and how does it look like?
In order to make most of the things work in hibernate, usually the information is provided in an xml document. This document is called as xml mapping document. The document defines, among other things, how properties of the user defined persistence classes’ map to the columns of the relative tables in database.













Everything should be included under tag. This is the main tag for an xml mapping document

Show Hibernate overview?




What the Core interfaces are of hibernate framework?
There are many benefits from these. Out of which the following are the most important one.
Session Interface – This is the primary interface used by hibernate applications. The instances of this interface are lightweight and are inexpensive to create and destroy. Hibernate sessions are not thread safe.
SessionFactory Interface – This is a factory that delivers the session objects to hibernate application. Generally there will be a single SessionFactory for the whole application and it will be shared among all the application threads.
Configuration Interface – This interface is used to configure and bootstrap hibernate. The instance of this interface is used by the application in order to specify the location of hibernate specific mapping documents.
Transaction Interface – This is an optional interface but the above three interfaces are mandatory in each and every application. This interface abstracts the code from any kind of transaction implementations such as JDBC transaction, JTA transaction.
Query and Criteria Interface – This interface allows the user to perform queries and also control the flow of the query execution.

What are Callback interfaces?
These interfaces are used in the application to receive a notification when some object events occur. Like when an object is loaded, saved or deleted. There is no need to implement callbacks in hibernate applications, but they’re useful for implementing certain kinds of generic functionality.

What are Extension interfaces?
When the built-in functionalities provided by hibernate is not sufficient enough, it provides a way so that user can include other interfaces and implement those interfaces for user desire functionality. These interfaces are called as Extension interfaces.

What are the Extension interfaces that are there in hibernate?
There are many extension interfaces provided by hibernate.
ProxyFactory interface - used to create proxies
ConnectionProvider interface – used for JDBC connection management
TransactionFactory interface – Used for transaction management
Transaction interface – Used for transaction management
TransactionManagementLookup interface – Used in transaction management.
Cahce interface – provides caching techniques and strategies
CacheProvider interface – same as Cache interface
ClassPersister interface – provides ORM strategies
IdentifierGenerator interface – used for primary key generation
Dialect abstract class – provides SQL support

What are different environments to configure hibernate?

There are mainly two types of environments in which the configuration of hibernate application differs.

Managed environment – In this kind of environment everything from database connections, transaction boundaries, security levels and all are defined. An example of this kind of environment is environment provided by application servers such as JBoss, Weblogic and WebSphere.

Non-managed environment – This kind of environment provides a basic configuration template. Tomcat is one of the best examples that provide this kind of environment.

What is the file extension you use for hibernate mapping file?
The name of the file should be like this : filename.hbm.xml
The filename varies here. The extension of these files should be “.hbm.xml”.
This is just a convention and it’s not mandatory. But this is the best practice to follow this extension.

What do you create a SessionFactory?
Configuration cfg = new Configuration();
cfg.addResource("myinstance/MyConfig.hbm.xml");
cfg.setProperties( System.getProperties() );
SessionFactory sessions = cfg.buildSessionFactory();
First, we need to create an instance of Configuration and use that instance to refer to the location of the configuration file. After configuring this instance is used to create the SessionFactory by calling the method buildSessionFactory().

What is meant by Method chaining?
Method chaining is a programming technique that is supported by many hibernate interfaces. This is less readable when compared to actual java code. And it is not mandatory to use this format. Look how a SessionFactory is created when we use method chaining.
SessionFactory sessions = new Configuration()
.addResource("myinstance/MyConfig.hbm.xml")
.setProperties( System.getProperties() )
.buildSessionFactory();

Hibernate FAQ's

What is Hibernate?
Hibernate is a powerful, high performance object/relational persistence and query service. This lets the users to develop persistent classes following object-oriented principles such as association, inheritance, polymorphism, composition, and collections.

What is ORM?
ORM stands for Object/Relational mapping. It is the programmed and translucent perseverance of objects in a Java application in to the tables of a relational database using the metadata that describes the mapping between the objects and the database. It works by transforming the data from one representation to another.

What does an ORM solution comprises of?
It should have an API for performing basic CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations on objects of persistent classes

Should have a language or an API for specifying queries that refer to the classes and the properties of classes

An ability for specifying mapping metadata

It should have a technique for ORM implementation to interact with transactional objects to perform dirty checking, lazy association fetching, and other optimization functions


What are the different levels of ORM quality?
There are four levels defined for ORM quality.
Pure relational
Light object mapping
Medium object mapping
Full object mapping

What is a pure relational ORM?
The entire application, including the user interface, is designed around the relational model and SQL-based relational operations.

What is a meant by light object mapping?
The entities are represented as classes that are mapped manually to the relational tables. The code is hidden from the business logic using specific design patterns. This approach is successful for applications with a less number of entities, or applications with common, metadata-driven data models. This approach is most known to all.

What is a meant by medium object mapping?
The application is designed around an object model. The SQL code is generated at build time. And the associations between objects are supported by the persistence mechanism, and queries are specified using an object-oriented expression language. This is best suited for medium-sized applications with some complex transactions. Used when the mapping exceeds 25 different database products at a time.

What is meant by full object mapping?
Full object mapping supports sophisticated object modeling: composition, inheritance, polymorphism and persistence. The persistence layer implements transparent persistence; persistent classes do not inherit any special base class or have to implement a special interface. Efficient fetching strategies and caching strategies are implemented transparently to the application.

What are the benefits of ORM and Hibernate?
There are many benefits from these. Out of which the following are the most important one.

Productivity – Hibernate reduces the burden of developer by providing much of the functionality and let the developer to concentrate on business logic.

Maintainability – As hibernate provides most of the functionality, the LOC for the application will be reduced and it is easy to maintain. By automated object/relational persistence it even reduces the LOC.

Performance – Hand-coded persistence provided greater performance than automated one. But this is not true all the times. But in hibernate, it provides more optimization that works all the time there by increasing the performance. If it is automated persistence then it still increases the performance.

Vendor independence – Irrespective of the different types of databases that are there, hibernate provides a much easier way to develop a cross platform application.




How does hibernate code looks like?
Session session = getSessionFactory().openSession();
Transaction tx = session.beginTransaction();
MyPersistanceClass mpc = new MyPersistanceClass ("Sample App");
session.save(mpc);
tx.commit();
session.close();


The Session and Transaction are the interfaces provided by hibernate. There are many other interfaces besides this