Every persistence event has a corresponding callback method marker. These markers are shared between persistent classes and their listeners. You can use these markers to designate a method for callback either by annotating that method or by listing the method in the XML mapping file for a given class. The lifecycle events and their corresponding method markers are:

When declaring callback methods on a persistent class, any method may be used which takes no arguments and is not shared with any property access fields. Multiple events can be assigned to a single method as well.

Below is an example of how to declare callback methods on persistent classes:

/**
 * Example persistent class declaring our entity listener.
 */
@Entity
public class Magazine {

    @Transient 
    private byte[][] data;

    @ManyToMany
    private List<Photo> photos;

    @PostLoad
    public void convertPhotos() {
        data = new byte[photos.size()][];
        for (int i = 0; i < photos.size(); i++)
            data[i] = photos.get(i).toByteArray();
    }

    @PreDelete
    public void logMagazineDeletion() {
        getLog().debug("deleting magazine containing" + photos.size() 
            + " photos.");
    }
}

In an XML mapping file, we can define the same methods without annotations:

<entity class="Magazine">
    <pre-remove>logMagazineDeletion</pre-remove>
    <post-load>convertPhotos</post-load>
</entity>

Mixing lifecycle event code into your persistent classes is not always ideal. It is often more elegant to handle cross-cutting lifecycle events in a non-persistent listener class. JPA allows for this, requiring only that listener classes have a public no-arg constructor. Like persistent classes, your listener classes can consume any number of callbacks. The callback methods must take in a single java.lang.Object argument which represents the persistent object that triggered the event.

Entities can enumerate listeners using the EntityListeners annotation. This annotation takes an array of listener classes as its value.

Below is an example of how to declare an entity and its corresponding listener classes.

/**
 * Example persistent class declaring our entity listener.
 */
@Entity
@EntityListeners({ MagazineLogger.class, ... })
public class Magazine {

    // ... //
}


/**
 * Example entity listener.
 */
public class MagazineLogger {

    @PostPersist
    public void logAddition(Object pc) {
        getLog ().debug ("Added new magazine:" + ((Magazine) pc).getTitle ());
    }


    @PreRemove
    public void logDeletion(Object pc) {
        getLog().debug("Removing from circulation:" + 
            ((Magazine) pc).getTitle());
    }
}

In XML, we define both the listeners and their callback methods as so:

<entity class="Magazine">
    <entity-listeners>
        <entity-listener class="MagazineLogger">
            <post-persist>logAddition</post-persist>
            <pre-remove>logDeletion</pre-remove>
        </entity-listener>
    </entity-listeners>
</entity>

Entity listener methods are invoked in a specific order when a given event is fired. So-called default listeners are invoked first: these are listeners which have been defined in a package annotation or in the root element of XML mapping files. Next, entity listeners are invoked in the order of the inheritance hierarchy, with superclass listeners being invoked before subclass listeners. Finally, if an entity has multiple listeners for the same event, the listeners are invoked in declaration order.

You can exclude default listeners and listeners defined in superclasses from the invocation chain through the use of two class-level annotations: