Date and time mapping

In a typical relational database, there are three basic data types for columns:

• Date
• Time
• Timestamp

All of these three data types are represented in Java as an instance of the java.util.Date class. To make this clear for mapping by the persistence provider, the @Termporal annotation should be used to identify which one of the three database types should be selected. The following example shows how the @Temportal annotation is used:

@Entity 
public class Movie { 
    @Temporal(TemporalType.DATE) 
    private Date releaseDate; 
} 

The following values are available for the @Termporal annotation:

• TemporalType.DATE: Date-only values
• TemporalType.TIME: Time-only values
• TemporalType.TIMESTAMP: Date with time values