ONJava.com -- The Independent Source for Enterprise Java
oreilly.comSafari Books Online.Conferences.


AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Simple Object Persistence with the db4o Object Database Simple Object Persistence with the db4o Object Database

by Jim Paterson

Many Java applications need to deal with persistent data. In most cases, this means interfacing with a relational database, possibly a legacy database or an industry standard Database Management System (DBMS). The JDBC API and drivers for most database systems provide a standard way of using SQL to execute database queries. However, the interface is complicated by the "impedance mismatch" between the domain object model of the application and the relational model of the database. The object model is based on software engineering principles and models the objects in the problem domain, while the relational model is based on mathematical principles and organizes data for efficient storage and retrieval. Neither model is particularly better than the other, but the problem is that they are different and do not always sit together comfortably in the same application.

Some solutions to this problem, such as Hibernate and Java Data Objects, are designed to provide the developer with transparent persistence: the application deals with persistent objects using an object-oriented API without the need for SQL code to be embedded in the Java code. Container Managed Persistence (CMP) does a similar job for EJB containers, but it is not a general persistence facility for the Java platform. In any of these solutions, the objects are mapped to tables in a Relational DBMS (RDBMS) by the underlying framework, which generates the SQL required to store and retrieve object attributes. The more complex the object model, the more difficult the mapping. Descriptors, usually XML files, need to be created to define the mappings. Inheritance and many-to-many relationships, in particular, add complexity as these relationships cannot be directly represented in the relational model. Inheritance hierarchies can be mapped onto a set of tables in different ways; the choice results in a tradeoff between storage efficiency and query complexity, as a separate join table is required to implement a many-to-many relationship.

Storing objects in a database, which itself uses an object model, offers another solution. A variety of Object Oriented DBMS (OODBMS) products was developed, particularly during the 1990s, but such tools can be complex to configure and can require the use of an object definition language. The objects are stored as objects, but they are not native to the application language. These products have not had a major impact on the market outside some niche areas, and effort appears now to be mainly concentrated on object-oriented APIs for relational databases as well as on hybrid object-relational databases.

Embedded Databases

In some applications the overhead of an industrial strength DBMS is unnecessary, and data storage requirements are better provided with a small-footprint, embeddable database engine. SQLite, for example, provides a self-contained SQL database engine. But since the interface with Java is through a JDBC driver, such SQL-based solutions are still affected by the impedance mismatch.

In many cases persistence could be achieved more simply using an embedded object database engine. This is a good time to look at db4o. Created by Carl Rosenberg, db4o was at one time only available commercially, but now it is open source and has recently been licensed under the GPL.

db4o has some interesting features:

  • No impedance mismatch–objects are stored as they are
  • Automatic management of the database schema
  • No changes to classes to make them storable
  • Seamless Java (or .NET) language binding
  • Automated data bindings
  • Installation by adding a single 250Kb library file (Java jar or .NET DLL)
  • A single database file
  • Automatic schema versioning
  • Query-By-Example
  • S.O.D.A. (Simple Object Database Access), an open source query API

What Is It Good For?

Related Reading

Java Data Objects
By David Jordan, Craig Russell

db4o has been chosen for applications in embedded systems in which zero administration, reliability, and low footprint are critical features. In Germany, BMW Car IT, for example, uses it in an embedded car electronics prototype. Die Mobilanten, also in Germany, uses db4o in a PDA-based solution for mid-sized utilities. In the U.S., Massie Systems' retinal imaging system for infant eye diagnosis relies on db4o to power its client imaging session database.

The sheer simplicity of the way in which you store objects with db4o is also attractive for teaching purposes. The University of Essex and Texas A&M University uses db4o for teaching and research purposes. At my own college, for students learning how to apply object-oriented concepts in their projects, the need to interface with a relational database can have a negative influence on their approach to design of their domain models. Using db4o allows them to work with persistent data without the distraction of conflicting data models and without the need to spend a significant amount of time learning to use a tool such as Hibernate or a complex OODBMS. Also, learning about the concepts of an object-oriented query API may prove useful in the future.

Same API, Different Storage

Sometimes you just have to use a relational database. From the Java developer's point of view, transparent persistence is the ideal. If persistence is implemented through an object-oriented API , then the developer does not have to learn different techniques to make use of different kinds of data stores. Although db4o is not JDO-compliant (it is easier to use as a result), its creators have partnerships with other open source projects including MySQL and Hibernate and are working toward a single, consistent object persistence API that will interface with object databases including db4o itself, relational databases, and alternative storage schemes such as Prevayler. If doing things the JDO way is important to you, then you might look at ObjectDB, which is a JDO-compliant pure object database.

An Example

This example shows how simple it is to create a database and store objects. It also illustrates two query methods: Query-By-Example (QBE) and the more flexible S.O.D.A query API. The full source code of this example is available in the resources section below. [co: This doesn't properly target down to the Resources section -- js] To run it you need to add the db4o JAR file to your classpath and execute the main class Db4oTest.java.

The two classes in the example represent a baseball Team and a Player. To make things a bit more interesting, we also have a Pitcher class. Pitcher is a subclass of Player and adds one extra field on top of the ones it inherits. Team has an attribute that is a list of Player objects, which can, of course, include Pitcher objects. Team, Player, and Pitcher objects are "Plain Old Java Objects" with no persistence code. No unique key attributes are required as an object database automatically stores objects with unique object identifiers (OIDs).

Player class

public class Player {
    protected String name;
    protected int squadNumber;
    protected float battingAverage;
    protected Team team;
    public Player(String name, int squadNumber,
        float battingAverage){
        this.name = name;
        this.squadNumber = squadNumber;
        this.battingAverage = battingAverage;
    public void setName(String n){this.name = n;}  
    public String getName(){return this.name;} 
    public void setSquadNumber(int s){this.squadNumber = s;}  
    public int getSquadNumber(){return this.squadNumber;}   
    public void setBattingAverage(final float b) {
        this.battingAverage = b; } 
    public float getBattingAverage(){
        return this.battingAverage;}

    public void setTeam(Team t) {this.team = t;}
    public Team getTeam() {return this.team;}
    public String toString() {
        return name + ":" + battingAverage;

Pitcher class

public class Pitcher extends Player{   
    private int wins;
    public Pitcher(String name, int squadNumber,
                    float battingAverage, int wins) {
        this.wins = wins;
    public void setWins(final int w){this.wins = w;}
    public int getWins() {return this.wins;}
    public String toString() {
        return name + ":" + battingAverage + ", " + wins;

Team class

import java.util.List;
import java.util.ArrayList;

public class Team {
    private String name;
    private String city;
    private int won;
    private int lost;
    private List players;
    public Team(String name, String city,
                int won, int lost){
        this.name = name;
        this.city = city;
        this.won = won;
        this.lost = lost;
        this.players = new ArrayList();
    public void addPlayer(Player p) {
    public String getName(){return this.name;}  
    public void setStadium(String c){this.city = c;}
    public String getCity(){return this.city;} 
    public void setPlayers(List p){players = p;}
    public List getPlayers(){return players;}
    public void setWon(int w) {this.won = w;}
    public int getWon(){return this.won;}
    public void setLost(int l) {this.lost = l;}
    public int getLost() {return this.lost;}
    public String toString() {
        return name;

First, we set up some test data to work with:

// Create Players
Player p1 = new Player("Barry Bonds", 25, 0.362f);
Player p2 = new Player("Marquis Grissom", 9, 0.279f);
Player p3 = new Player("Ray Durham", 5, 0.282f);
Player p4 = new Player("Adrian Beltre", 29, 0.334f);
Player p5 = new Player("Cesar Izturis", 3, 0.288f);
Player p6 = new Player("Shawn Green", 15, 0.266f);
// Create Pitchers
Player p7 = new Pitcher("Kirk Rueter",46, 0.131f, 9);
Player p8 = new Pitcher("Kazuhisa Ishii",17, 0.127f, 13);
// Create Teams
Team t1 = new Team("Giants", "San Francisco", 91, 71);
Team t2 = new Team("Dodgers", "Los Angeles", 93, 69);
// Add Players to Teams
t1.addPlayer(p1); p1.setTeam(t1);
t1.addPlayer(p2); p2.setTeam(t1);
t1.addPlayer(p3); p3.setTeam(t1);
t2.addPlayer(p4); p4.setTeam(t2);
t2.addPlayer(p5); p5.setTeam(t2);
t2.addPlayer(p6); p6.setTeam(t2);
// Add Pitchers to Teams
t1.addPlayer(p7); p7.setTeam(t1);
t2.addPlayer(p8); p8.setTeam(t2);

Pages: 1, 2

Next Pagearrow