net.corda.v5.application.persistence

The persistence package provides services for performing persistence operations; mainly reading and writing data to and from the database. The PersistenceService. is the main service for providing this functionality. For more information, see the documentation for the package in the Java API documentation.

Corda supports CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations for user-defined types. This is achieved using JPA-annotated entities and, to manage database migrations, Liquibase.

Defining Custom Tables Using Liquibase Migrations

CorDapps store data in a relational database. When a Network Operator creates a virtual node for a CorDapp Corda Distributed Application. A Java (or any JVM targeting language) application built using the Corda build toolchain and CorDapp API to solve some problem that is best solved in a decentralized manner. , it requires associated tables, indexes, foreign-keys, and so on. To create these, you must embed Liquibase files into the CorDapp CPK Corda Package. A signed ZIP/JAR library of Java code packaged to be portable with all of its dependencies and version information contained within it. .

Liquibase manages database changes in a change log which references one or more change sets. You must specify the top-level databaseChangeLog in a resource file in the CPK called migration/db.changelog-master.xml. This file can reference one or more files including changeSet.

You should organise these change sets with future changes in mind. For example, R3 recommends a single include per version of the table. Once a changeSet is deployed, it cannot be changed and any change must be provided as a changeSet with a new id. We suggest adding a version in the id; for example, <table-name>-v1.

Example of src/resources/migration/db.changelog-master.xml:

<?xml version="1.1" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<databaseChangeLog xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog"
                   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
                   xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-4.3.xsd">
    <include file="migration/dogs-migration-v1.0.xml"/>
</databaseChangeLog>

The referenced include file should also be a resource file in src/resources/migration and define the table itself. For example, src/resources/migration/dogs-migration-v1.0.xml:

<?xml version="1.1" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<databaseChangeLog xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog"
                   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
                   xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-4.3.xsd">

    <changeSet author="R3.Corda" id="dogs-migrations-v1.0">
        <createTable tableName="dog">
            <column name="id" type="uuid">
                <constraints nullable="false"/>
            </column>
            <column name="name" type="VARCHAR(255)"/>
            <column name="birthdate" type="DATETIME"/>
            <column name="owner" type="VARCHAR(255)"/>
        </createTable>
        <addPrimaryKey columnNames="id" constraintName="dog_id" tableName="dog"/>
    </changeSet>
</databaseChangeLog>

Running the Liquibase Migrations

The migrations run when the Network Operator creates the virtual node and logging shows the migrations executing. If you have direct database access, you should see the tables being created. If you are using Postgres, make sure to look under the correct schema, since each virtual node creates a new schema, unless an external virtual node database was provided during virtual node creation.

Mapping Your New Tables to JPA Entities

CorDapps should use JPA annotated POJOs for data access objects. Each class requires @CordaSerializable and @Entity annotations. The following is an example that also defines some named JPQL queries:

@CordaSerializable
@Entity(name = "dog")
@NamedQueries(
    NamedQuery(name = "Dog.summon", query = "SELECT d FROM Dog d WHERE d.name = :name"),
    NamedQuery(name = "Dog.independent", query = "SELECT d FROM Dog d WHERE d.owner IS NULL"),
    NamedQuery(name = "Dog.summonLike", query = "SELECT d FROM Dog d WHERE d.name LIKE :name ORDER BY d.name"),
    NamedQuery(name = "Dog.all", query = "SELECT d FROM Dog d ORDER BY d.name"),
    NamedQuery(name = "Dog.release", query = "UPDATE Dog SET owner=null")
)
class Dog(
    @Id
    @Column(name = "id", nullable = false)
    val id: UUID,
    @Column(name = "name")
    val name: String,
    @Column(name = "birthdate")
    val birthdate: Instant,
    @Column(name = "owner")
    val owner: String?
) {
    constructor() : this(id = UUID.randomUUID(), name = "", birthdate = Instant.now(), owner = "")

    override fun equals(other: Any?): Boolean {
        if (this === other) return true
        if (javaClass != other?.javaClass) return false

        other as Dog

        if (id != other.id) return false
        if (name != other.name) return false
        if (birthdate != other.birthdate) return false
        if (owner != other.owner) return false

        return true
    }

    override fun hashCode(): Int {
        var result = id.hashCode()
        result = 31 * result + name.hashCode()
        result = 31 * result + birthdate.hashCode()
        result = 31 * result + owner.hashCode()
        return result
    }
}

Using the Persistence API From a CorDapp Flow

To use the Persistence API from a flow Communication between participants in an application network is peer-to-peer using flows. :

1. Define a reference to the persistence service. This should be supplied via the Corda dependency injection system:

   import net.corda.v5.application.flows.CordaInject
   import net.corda.v5.application.flows.ClientStartableFlow
   import net.corda.v5.application.persistence.PersistenceService
   
   class MyExampleFlow : ClientStartableFlow {
       @CordaInject
       lateinit var persistenceService: PersistenceService
   
       // your code goes here
   

2. To create a Dog entity that writes a row to the database, use the following code:

     val dog = Dog(dogId, "dog", Instant.now(), "none")
     persistenceService.persist(dog)
   

   All persistence operations are processed over Kafka.

3. To load a row from the database by ID, use the following code:

     val dog = persistenceService.find(Dog::class.java, dogId)
     return if (dog == null) {
         "no dog found"
     } else {
         "found dog id='${dog.id}' name='${dog.name}"
     }
   

   Alternatively, to load all entities and create Dog instances for every record in the Dog table in the database, use the following code:

   val dogs = persistenceService.findAll(Dog::class.java).execute()
   

4. To update a record, use the merge operation. For example, to change the name of a Dog and set the owner to null:

   val newDogName = input.getValue("name")
   persistenceService.merge(Dog(dogId, newDogName, Instant.now(), "none"))
   

   All of the operations available are defined in the public interface: PersistenceService.