§Using the Ebean ORM

§Configuring Ebean

Play 2.0 comes with the Ebean ORM. To enable it, add the following line to conf/application.conf:

ebean.default="models.*"

This defines a default Ebean server, using the default data source, which must be properly configured. You can actually create as many Ebean servers you need, and explicitly define the mapped class for each server.

ebean.orders="models.Order,models.OrderItem"
ebean.customers="models.Customer,models.Address"

In this example, we have access to two Ebean servers - each using its own database.

For more information about Ebean, see the Ebean documentation .

§Using the play.db.ebean.Model superclass

Play 2.0 defines a convenient superclass for your Ebean model classes. Here is a typical Ebean class, mapped in Play 2.0:

package models;

import java.util.*;
import javax.persistence.*;

import play.db.ebean.*;
import play.data.format.*;
import play.data.validation.*;

@Entity 
public class Task extends Model {

  @Id
  @Constraints.Min(10)
  public Long id;
  
  @Constraints.Required
  public String name;
  
  public boolean done;
  
  @Formats.DateTime(pattern="dd/MM/yyyy")
  public Date dueDate = new Date();
  
  public static Finder<Long,Task> find = new Finder<Long,Task>(
    Long.class, Task.class
  ); 

}

Play has been designed to generate getter/setter automatically, to ensure compatibility with libraries that expect them to be available at runtime (ORM, Databinder, JSON Binder, etc). If Play detects any user-written getter/setter in the Model, it will not generate getter/setter in order to avoid any conflict.

As you can see, we’ve added a find static field, defining a Finder for an entity of type Task with a Long identifier. This helper field is then used to simplify querying our model:

// Find all tasks
List<Task> tasks = Task.find.all();
    
// Find a task by ID
Task anyTask = Task.find.byId(34L);

// Delete a task by ID
Task.find.ref(34L).delete();

// More complex task query
List<Task> tasks = find.where()
    .ilike("name", "%coco%")
    .orderBy("dueDate asc")
    .findPagingList(25)
    .getPage(1);

§Transactional actions

By default Ebean will not use transactions. However, you can use any transaction helper provided by Ebean to create a transaction. For example:

:: Rob Bygrave -
The above statement is not correct. Ebean will use implicit transactions. To demarcate transactions you have 3 options: @Transactional, TxRunnable() or a beginTransaction(), commitTransaction()

See http://www.avaje.org/ebean/introtrans.html for examples and an explanation.
:: - end note

// run in Transactional scope...  
Ebean.execute(new TxRunnable() {  
  public void run() {  
      
    // code running in "REQUIRED" transactional scope  
    // ... as "REQUIRED" is the default TxType  
    System.out.println(Ebean.currentTransaction());  
      
    // find stuff...  
    User user = Ebean.find(User.class, 1);  
    ...  
      
    // save and delete stuff...  
    Ebean.save(user);  
    Ebean.delete(order);  
    ...  
  }  
});

You can also annotate your action method with @play.db.ebean.Transactional to compose your action method with an Action that will automatically manage a transaction:

@Transactional
public static Result save() {
  ...
}

Next: Integrating with JPA