Object/Relational Mapping (ORM) is a programming technique that enables developers to work with relational databases using object-oriented programming languages. It provides a bridge between the relational database model and the object-oriented model, allowing developers to manipulate database records as if they were objects in their programming language.
Entities represent objects in an application domain that are persisted in a database. Each entity typically corresponds to a table in the database, with each instance of the entity representing a row in that table.
Relationships define associations between entities. There are various types of relationships, such as one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many, which model how entities are related to each other.
Mapping is the process of defining how entities and their relationships are mapped to the underlying database schema. This includes mapping entity attributes to table columns, defining primary and foreign keys, and specifying relationships between entities.
Persistence refers to the ability to store and retrieve entity objects from a database. ORM frameworks provide APIs for managing the lifecycle of entities, including saving, updating, deleting, and querying database records.
Automating repetitive tasks involved in database access, such as generating SQL queries, mapping query results to objects, and managing database transactions. This allows developers to focus on writing application logic rather than dealing with low-level database interactions.
Abstracting away the differences between different database systems, allowing applications to be developed and deployed across multiple database platforms without significant changes to the codebase.
Enabling developers to work with databases using object-oriented programming paradigms, which are more intuitive and expressive than SQL-based approaches. This simplifies the development process and makes the codebase easier to understand and maintain.
Providing features for optimizing database access, such as caching, lazy loading, and batch processing. These optimizations can improve application performance by reducing the number of database queries and minimizing data transfer overhead.
Object/Relational Mapping (ORM) is a powerful technique for bridging the gap between object-oriented programming and relational databases. By abstracting away the complexities of database access, ORM framework Bibernate enable developers to build applications more efficiently and focus on delivering value to end-users.