Data access object (DAO) in Java

379

votes

I was going through a document and I came across a term called DAO. I found out that it is a Data Access Object. Can someone please explain me what this actually is?

I know that it is some kind of an interface for accessing data from different types of sources, in the middle of this little research of mine I bumped into a concept called data source or data source object, and things got messed up in my mind.

I really want to know what a DAO is programmatically in terms of where it is used. How it is used? Any links to pages that explain this concept from the very basic stuff is also appreciated.

javadao

491

votes

The Data Access Object is basically an object or an interface that provides access to an underlying database or any other persistence storage.

That definition from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_access_object

Check also the sequence diagram here: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/dataaccessobject-138824.html

Maybe a simple example can help you understand the concept:

Let's say we have an entity to represent an employee:

public class Employee {

    private int id;
    private String name;


    public int getId() {
        return id;
    }
    public void setId(int id) {
        this.id = id;
    }
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

}

The employee entities will be persisted into a corresponding Employee table in a database. A simple DAO interface to handle the database operation required to manipulate an employee entity will be like:

interface EmployeeDAO {

    List<Employee> findAll();
    List<Employee> findById();
    List<Employee> findByName();
    boolean insertEmployee(Employee employee);
    boolean updateEmployee(Employee employee);
    boolean deleteEmployee(Employee employee);

}

Next we have to provide a concrete implementation for that interface to deal with SQL server, and another to deal with flat files, etc.

92

votes

What is DATA ACCESS OBJECT (DAO) -

It is a object/interface, which is used to access data from database of data storage.

WHY WE USE DAO:

it abstracts the retrieval of data from a data resource such as a database. The concept is to "separate a data resource's client interface from its data access mechanism."

The problem with accessing data directly is that the source of the data can change. Consider, for example, that your application is deployed in an environment that accesses an Oracle database. Then it is subsequently deployed to an environment that uses Microsoft SQL Server. If your application uses stored procedures and database-specific code (such as generating a number sequence), how do you handle that in your application? You have two options:

Rewrite your application to use SQL Server instead of Oracle (or add conditional code to handle the differences), or
Create a layer inbetween your application logic and the data access

Its in all referred as DAO Pattern, It consist of following:

Data Access Object Interface - This interface defines the standard operations to be performed on a model object(s).
Data Access Object concrete class -This class implements above interface. This class is responsible to get data from a datasource which can be database / xml or any other storage mechanism.
Model Object or Value Object - This object is simple POJO containing get/set methods to store data retrieved using DAO class.

Please check this example, This will clear things more clearly.

Example
I assume this things must have cleared your understanding of DAO up to certain extend.

15

votes

DAO (Data Access Object) is a very used design pattern in enterprise applications. It basically is the module that is used to access data from every source (DBMS, XML and so on). I suggest you to read some examples, like this one:

DAO Example

Please note that there are different ways to implements the original DAO Pattern, and there are many frameworks that can simplify your work. For example, the ORM (Object Relational Mapping) frameworks like iBatis or Hibernate, are used to map the result of SQL queries to java objects.

Hope it helps, Bye!

9

votes

Data Access Object Pattern or DAO pattern is used to separate low level data accessing API or operations from high level business services. Following are the participants in Data Access Object Pattern.

Data Access Object Interface - This interface defines the standard operations to be performed on a model object(s).

Data Access Object concrete class -This class implements above interface. This class is responsible to get data from a datasource which can be database / xml or any other storage mechanism.

Model Object or Value Object - This object is simple POJO containing get/set methods to store data retrieved using DAO class.

Sample code here..

7

votes

I am going to be general and not specific to Java as DAO and ORM are used in all languages.

To understand DAO you first need to understand ORM (Object Relational Mapping). This means that if you have a table called "person" with columns "name" and "age", then you would create object-template for that table:

type Person {
name
age
}

Now with help of DAO instead of writing some specific queries, to fetch all persons, for what ever type of db you are using (which can be error-prone) instead you do:

list persons = DAO.getPersons();
...
person = DAO.getPersonWithName("John");
age = person.age;

You do not write the DAO abstraction yourself, instead it is usually part of some opensource project, depending on what language and framework you are using.

Now to the main question here. "..where it is used..". Well usually if you are writing complex business and domain specific code your life will be very difficult without DAO. Of course you do not need to use ORM and DAO provided, instead you can write your own abstraction and native queries. I have done that in the past and almost always regretted it later.

6

votes

I think the best example (along with explanations) you can find on the oracle website : here. Another good tuturial could be found here.

5

votes

Don't get confused with too many explanations. DAO: From the name itself it means Accessing Data using Object. DAO is separated from other Business Logic.

4

votes

The Data Access Object manages the connection with the data source to obtain and store data.It abstracts the underlying data access implementation for the Business Object to enable transparent access to the data source. A data source could be any database such as an RDBMS, XML repository or flat file system etc.

4

votes

Spring JPA DAO

For example we have some entity Group.

For this entity we create the repository GroupRepository.

public interface GroupRepository extends JpaRepository<Group, Long> {   
}

Then we need to create a service layer with which we will use this repository.

public interface Service<T, ID> {

    T save(T entity);

    void deleteById(ID id);

    List<T> findAll();

    T getOne(ID id);

    T editEntity(T entity);

    Optional<T> findById(ID id);
}

public abstract class AbstractService<T, ID, R extends JpaRepository<T, ID>> implements Service<T, ID> {

    private final R repository;

    protected AbstractService(R repository) {
        this.repository = repository;
    }

    @Override
    public T save(T entity) {
        return repository.save(entity);
    }

    @Override
    public void deleteById(ID id) {
        repository.deleteById(id);
    }

    @Override
    public List<T> findAll() {
        return repository.findAll();
    }

    @Override
    public T getOne(ID id) {
        return repository.getOne(id);
    }

    @Override
    public Optional<T> findById(ID id) {
        return repository.findById(id);
    }

    @Override
    public T editEntity(T entity) {
        return repository.saveAndFlush(entity);
    }
}

@org.springframework.stereotype.Service
public class GroupServiceImpl extends AbstractService<Group, Long, GroupRepository> {

    private final GroupRepository groupRepository;

    @Autowired
    protected GroupServiceImpl(GroupRepository repository) {
        super(repository);
        this.groupRepository = repository;
    }
}

And in the controller we use this service.

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/api")
class GroupController {

    private final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(GroupController.class);

    private final GroupServiceImpl groupService;

    @Autowired
    public GroupController(GroupServiceImpl groupService) {
        this.groupService = groupService;
    }

    @GetMapping("/groups")
    Collection<Group> groups() {
        return groupService.findAll();
    }

    @GetMapping("/group/{id}")
    ResponseEntity<?> getGroup(@PathVariable Long id) {
        Optional<Group> group = groupService.findById(id);
        return group.map(response -> ResponseEntity.ok().body(response))
                .orElse(new ResponseEntity<>(HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND));
    }

    @PostMapping("/group")
    ResponseEntity<Group> createGroup(@Valid @RequestBody Group group) throws URISyntaxException {
        log.info("Request to create group: {}", group);
        Group result = groupService.save(group);
        return ResponseEntity.created(new URI("/api/group/" + result.getId()))
                .body(result);
    }

    @PutMapping("/group")
    ResponseEntity<Group> updateGroup(@Valid @RequestBody Group group) {
        log.info("Request to update group: {}", group);
        Group result = groupService.save(group);
        return ResponseEntity.ok().body(result);
    }

    @DeleteMapping("/group/{id}")
    public ResponseEntity<?> deleteGroup(@PathVariable Long id) {
        log.info("Request to delete group: {}", id);
        groupService.deleteById(id);
        return ResponseEntity.ok().build();
    }    
}

2

votes

DAO is an act like as "Persistence Manager " in 3 tier architecture as well as DAO also design pattern as you can consult "Gang of Four" book. Your application service layer just need to call the method of DAO class without knowing hidden & internal details of DAO's method.

2

votes

Dao clases are used to reuse the jdbc logic & Dao(Data Access Object) is a design pattern. dao is a simple java class which contains JDBC logic .

Data Access Layer has proven good in separate business logic layer and persistent layer. The DAO design pattern completely hides the data access implementation from its clients

The Java Data Access Object (Java DAO) is an important component in business applications. Business applications almost always need access to data from relational or object databases and the Java platform offers many techniques for accessingthis data. The oldest and most mature technique is to use the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)API, which provides the capability to execute SQL queries against a databaseand then fetch the results, one column at a time.

1

votes

Pojo also consider as Model class in Java where we can create getter and setter for particular variable defined in private . Remember all variables are here declared with private modifier

0

votes

I just want to explain it in my own way with a small story that I experienced in one of my projects. First I want to explain Why DAO is important? rather than go to What is DAO? for better understanding.

Why DAO is important?
In my one project of my project, I used Client.class which contains all the basic information of our system users. Where I need client then every time I need to do an ugly query where it is needed. Then I felt that decreases the readability and made a lot of redundant boilerplate code.

Then one of my senior developers introduced a QueryUtils.class where all queries are added using public static access modifier and then I don't need to do query everywhere. Suppose when I needed activated clients then I just call -

QueryUtils.findAllActivatedClients();

In this way, I made some optimizations of my code.

But there was another problem !!!

I felt that the QueryUtils.class was growing very highly. 100+ methods were included in that class which was also very cumbersome to read and use. Because this class contains other queries of another domain models ( For example- products, categories locations, etc ).

Then the superhero Mr. CTO introduced a new solution named DAO which solved the problem finally. I felt DAO is very domain-specific. For example, he created a DAO called ClientDAO.class where all Client.class related queries are found which seems very easy for me to use and maintain. The giant QueryUtils.class was broken down into many other domain-specific DAO for example - ProductsDAO.class, CategoriesDAO.class, etc which made the code more Readable, more Maintainable, more Decoupled.

What is DAO?

It is an object or interface, which made an easy way to access data from the database without writing complex and ugly queries every time in a reusable way.

Data access object (DAO) in Java

13 Answers

Spring JPA DAO