What is iBatis and what are its features and advantages ?

What is iBatis ?

iBATIS is a persistence framework which automates the mapping between SQL databases and objects.

The mappings are decoupled from the application logic by packaging the SQL statements in XML configuration files.

iBATIS is a lightweight framework and persistence API good for persisting POJOs.

How iBatis is different ?

iBATIS emphasizes use of SQL, while other frameworks typically use a custom query language such has the Hibernate Query Language (HQL) or Enterprise JavaBeans Query Language (EJB QL)

Features

Simplicity - one of the simplest persistence frameworks

Fast Development - facilitate hyper-fast development

Portability - possible to implement for many languages / platforms like Java, Ruby, and C# for Microsoft .NET

Independent Interfaces - Database-independent interfaces and APIs

Open source - Free and Open source

Advantages of iBATIS

Suppports Stored procedures

encapsulates SQL in the form of stored procedures so that business logic is kept out of the database, and the application is easier to deploy and test, and is more portable.

Supports Inline SQL

No pre-compiler is needed, and you have full access to all of the features of SQL.

Supports Dynamic SQL

provides features for dynamically building SQL queries based on parameters.

Supports ORM

supports many of the features as other ORM tool (lazy loading, join fetching, caching, runtime code generation and inheritance)