Java Data Objects

Java Data Objects (JDO) is a specification of Java object persistence. One of its features is a transparency of the persistence services to the domain model. JDO persistent objects are ordinary Java programming language classes (POJOs); there is no requirement for them to implement certain interfaces or extend from special classes. JDO 1.0 was developed under the Java Community Process as JSR 12. JDO 2.0 was developed under JSR 243 and was released on May 10, 2006. JDO 2.1 was completed in Feb 2008, developed by the Apache JDO project. JDO 2.2 was released in October 2008. JDO 3.0 was released in April 2010.

Object persistence is defined in the external XML metafiles, which may have vendor-specific extensions. JDO vendors provide developers with enhancers, which modify compiled Java class files so they can be transparently persisted. (Note that byte-code enhancement is not mandated by the JDO specification, although it is the commonly used mechanism for implementing the JDO specification's requirements.) Currently, JDO vendors offer several options for persistence, e.g. to RDBMS, to OODB, or to files.

JDO enhanced classes are portable across different vendors' implementation. Once enhanced, a Java class can be used with any vendor's JDO product.

JDO is integrated with Java EE in several ways. First of all, the vendor implementation may be provided as a JEE Connector. Secondly, JDO may work in the context of JEE transaction services.

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