mvn2-spring-openjpa
Release 1
July 17, 2009

What is mvn2-spring-openjpa?

This project is intended to serve as an example of an integration test using Maven 2, Spring 2,
JPA, Open JPA, and HSQLDB.  I have intentionally left the project as simple as possible so
that it might be useful to others that are trying to implements similar integration tests in their
projects.

What's so great about mvn2-spring-openjpa?

Besides installing Java 5 (you've installed this already, right?) and Maven 2, this project
requires no other "manual" downloads.  Maven 2 takes care of all dependency management issues.
A great side effect of Maven's dependency management capabilities is that we don't have to
install and configure a database.

What are the prerequisites for running mvn2-spring-jpa?

1. Java 5 or greater. 
2. Maven 2.  I am using release 2.0.9

How do I run the tests in mvn2-spring-openjpa?

Very simple.  After unzipping/untarring the file you downloaded, run "mvn test" from the mvn2-spring-jpa
directory.  Most likely you will need to put the release directory into a path with no spaces.  I use
c:\projects\mvn2-spring-openjpa.

What exactly does mvn2-spring-openjpa do? The short answer

"mvn test" runs the JUnit test net.usefulbits.PersonTest.

What exactly does mvn2-spring-openjpa do? The medium (but highly abbreviated) answer

0. You run "mvn test" from within the mvn2-spring-jpa directory.
1. Maven loads pom.xml and downloads required jars (don't undestimate how powerful this is!)
2. OpenJPA automatically creates a HSQL database and a Person table in that database.
3. Maven runs the test class net.usefulbits.PersonTest after Spring injects a fully configured
net.usefulbits.dao.JpaPersonDao into the test class.
4. This test class has several @Test methods in it, but they all boil down to saving a
net.usefulbits.Person to the database and then quering the database to make sure the
Person was actually saved.

What about mvn2-spring-jpa?

This sample was taken from David Krisch's excellent mvn2-spring-jpa sample at http://code.google.com/p/mvn2-spring-jpa and adapted for use with openjpa by Steve Dalton. If you are using Hibernate have a look at mvn2-spring-jpa, but if you've never used Hibernate before and need to deploy to a standard JEE container - openjpa might be for you.