How does jboss auto generate table for entity bean?

[terapico]

At Exercise 4.1, the workbook says if we use the default db (hypersonic sql), the table for the Entity bean will be generated automatically at deployment time. Is this a JBoss specific feature? Can someone explain on how it works?

Thanks

[bill.burke]

actually it works with any database. Read chapter 7 (or is it 6?) for more information. Basically in standardjbosscmp-jdbc.xml there are some config flags <create-table>. No matter what database it is, if create-table is set to true, jboss will try and create the table for the CMP if it does not exist. This will happen on deployment.

<remove-table> is the opposite. On undeployment of the ejb-jar(shutdown for instance), the table will be dropped.

Basically you can let JBoss create relationships, constraints etc, without involving a db init sql script.

Bill

[terapico]

Thank you. I will read the chapters.