About Data Objects and DAO Design when using Hibernate
- by X. Ma
I'm hesitating between two designs of a database project using Hibernate.
Design #1.
(1) Create a general data provider interface, including a set of DAO interfaces and general data container classes. It hides the underneath implementation. A data provider implementation could access data in database, or an XML file, or a service, or something else. The user of a data provider does not to know about it.
(2) Create a database library with Hibernate. This library implements the data provider interface in (1).
The bad thing about Design #1 is that in order to hide the implementation details, I need to create two sets of data container classes. One in the general data provider interface - let's call them DPI-Objects, the other set is used in the database library, exclusively for entity/attribute mapping in Hibernate - let's call them H-Objects. In the DAO implementation, I need to read data from database to create H-Objects (via Hibernate) and then convert H-Objects into DPI-Objects.
Design #2.
Do not create a general data provider interface. Expose H-Objects directly to components that use the database lib. So the user of the database library needs to be aware of Hibernate.
I like design #1 more, but I don't want to create two sets of data container classes. Is that the right way to hide H-Objects and other Hibernate implementation details from the user who uses the database-based data provider?
Are there any drawbacks of Design #2? I will not implement other data provider in the new future, so should I just forget about the data provider interface and use Design #2?
What do you think about this? Thanks for your time!