When working on a software system that is backed by a persistence layer such as a database the developers need to mitigate that connection through some means. Object-relational mapping gives developers the ability to interact with an object instead of sql queries, stored procedures or something else.
The iBATIS framework provides data mapping in a simple and flexible manner and mitigates the transfer of data between your objects and relational database. You can use the full power of SQL without writing a single line of JDBC code. With iBATIS data access objects you can abstract the persistence implementation of your application. Coding to the DAO’s provided by iBATIS will enable your project to be dynamically configured to use different persistence mechanisms through one common interface.
iBator is a code generator for iBATIS. It will introspect a database schema and generate iBATIS artifacts. iBator can be run as a plugin for eclipse, once configured to the database any changes in tables can be quickly enveloped in the iBATIS layer by simply running the iBator generator over the changed database (can also be run as an ant task or a stand alone JAR).
For this project we will be working with Eclipse, iBator, MySQL and Spring. I will be using an example project that I am working on with some friends codenamed ‘chapplet’.