Does a getter method in JPA need an underlying instance variable?

Hi!

I'm unsure if a getter method in an entity bean has to have an underlying instance variable to be recognized as an property by the persistence manager. Or could it possibly be just a value deduced from some other data? I think it should be possible to provide getter methods without a directly corresponding instance variable but i couldn't find a clear statement to this problem.

Thanks for an answer!

Marco

Marco, you don't need any instance variable...

You sometimes will find that these are like formula fields, since the data that gets returned is basically calculated from other values that are in the class.

Mark

Thanks for your answers. However on second thoughts i reached the conclusion that it would be just stupid to persist something that can be calculated from other values anyway.

So i think in practice i would rather mark such a property @Transient than persisting it wouldn't i? I think storing it in the database would just create more redundancy.