BeanKeeper
~~~~~~~~~~

This library is an Object/Relation mapping framework for Java. It
is designed to be easy to use (no xmls to write, no tables to create,
no ids to generate, no primary keys to fiddle with, just point it to the 
database, check the apidoc for 3 basic methods and code away). It supports 
transactions, has it's own simple query language (very similar to sql), 
can handle object references, lists, maps, sets, collections.

When to use this framework instead of the bazillion others
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The aim of this Java library is to provide a _simple_ persistence
(Object/Relation mapping) layer. It's main design goals:
* Simple things should be easy to do. For example saving/deleting a Java object
  should be simple. Selecting should also be easy to write.
* It should not require any kind of generating, or code modification.
  Generating/copying more than a few lines of code usually
  indicates bad design.
* It should not require any interaction with a database on lower level
  from the developer. As developers, we usually don't like databases
  which require tweaking settings, installing/creating "tablespaces", adjusting
  indexes, creating tables, defining rows, creating "instances", etc. Other then
  performance tuning, why should we care about these things? 
* Selecting should be a bit easier and more readable than SQL. It also
  should use objects and not "tables", since we store objects. Also,
  this may mean the query language has not so many options/capabilities,
  but that's ok, if they are not needed most of the time.

That said, you can use this library if you are only manipulating objects,
and do not want to bother setting up complex tables and their interrelations.
Most often writing web applications requires saving
simple data structures, and querying in paged, ordered result sets. This
library does that for example very easily.

Documentation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check the website for a tutorial: http://netmind.hu/beankeeper, and
detailed documentation. There are also mailing lists and wiki available.

Building
~~~~~~~~

To build, just issue the following command:

   $ mvn package

You may stop at this step, if all you want is the jar file. If you use maven,
then you may edit the 'src/test/resources/test.properties' file, to setup
your driver class and url for the integration tests. Then install beankeeper
to your maven repository with the command:

   $ mvn install

If all test run correctly, you are ready to go.

Requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~

All the dependencies are taken care of by maven, but
if you use the library outside maven, you'll need the
following dependencies at runtime:

* log4j-1.2.15.jar (or any other post 1.2 log4j library)
* beankeeper-x.x.x.jar (this code)
* commons-configuration-1.5.jar (or later)
* commons-lang-2.4.jar (or later)
* commons-logging-1.1.1.jar (or later)
* commons-collections-3.2.1.jar (or later)