Java Persistence with Hibernate

Chapter 6. Mapping collections and entity associations

Two important (and sometimes difficult to understand) topics didn't appear in the previous chapters: the mapping of collections, and the mapping of associations between entity classes.

Most developers new to Hibernate are dealing with collections and entity associations for the first time when they try to map a typical parent/child relationship. But instead of jumping right into the middle, we start this chapter with basic collection mapping concepts and simple examples. After that, you'll be prepared for the first collection in an entity association—although we'll come back to more complicated entity association mappings in the next chapter. To get the full picture, we recommend you read ...