javax.persistence Annotations on field, getter or setter?

Question

I am currently learning Hibernate and the Java Persistence API.

I have an @Entity class, and need to apply annotations to the various fields. I have included in the code

Answer 1

You have to put annotations only for field or only for getter

@Id 
@Column(name="id", unique=true, nullable=false)
private int    id;

public int getId() {
    return id;
}

public void setId(int id) {
    this.id = id;
}

or

private int    id;

@Id 
@Column(name="id", unique=true, nullable=false)
public int getId() {
    return id;
}

public void setId(int id) {
    this.id = id;
}

And for all fields/properties in same way. All annotations for fields or all annotations for getter

Answer 2

You have to choose between field and getter. Annotations on setters are not supported. And all the annotations should be on fields, or they should all be on getters: you can't mix both approaches (except if you use the @AccessType annotation).

Regarding which one is preferrale, the answer is: it depends. I prefer field access, but YMMV, and there are situations where property access is preferrable. See Hibernate Annotations - Which is better, field or property access?.