net.sf.mmm.util.entity.api

Interface PersistenceEntity<ID>

Type Parameters:

ID - is the type of the primary key.

All Superinterfaces:

AttributeReadId<ID>, Entity, GenericEntity<ID>, RevisionedEntity<ID>, Serializable

public interface PersistenceEntity<ID>
extends RevisionedEntity<ID>

This is the interface to mark a RevisionedEntity that represents an entity of the persistence. Unlike TransferObjects such object may be in STATE_MANAGED and is connected with a persistent store. Typically this will happen using JPA and an RDBMS. In this case classes implementing this interface will have JPA annotations and gets managed by an EntityManager.
ATTENTION:
An instance of this interface can NOT be considered as a regular java-object. It is better to think of a persistence entity as a direct view into the persistent store. Therefore you should never make modifications (e.g. invoke setters or sort list properties) that are NOT intended to be persisted.
Further the underlying persistence-code may create dynamic proxies for your entity. Therefore you should NOT declare methods (getters and setters) as final except you exactly know what you are doing. Additionally getClass() may return a subclass of your entity that you never created (see PersistenceManager in mmm-persistence for additional information and support).

Since:

3.0.0

Author:

Joerg Hohwiller (hohwille at users.sourceforge.net)