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Hibernate / MyBatis Interview questions

Explain the lifecycle of a SqlSession?

A SqlSession moves through a defined, short-lived lifecycle: created from a SqlSessionFactory, used to execute one or more statements (typically within a single logical unit of work), and then explicitly closed, with the details of commit/rollback timing depending on whether it's being managed manually or via Spring.

flowchart TD A[SqlSessionFactory.openSession] --> B[SqlSession created, connection obtained] B --> C[Get Mapper proxy via session.getMapper] C --> D[Execute one or more statements through the mapper] D --> E{Auto-commit mode?} E -- No, manual commit needed --> F[session.commit called explicitly] E -- Yes, or Spring-managed --> G[Commit handled automatically per configuration] F --> H[session.close called - typically via try-with-resources] G --> H H --> I[Underlying connection released back to pool]

In plain, non-Spring usage, a SqlSession defaults to non-auto-commit mode (unless openSession(true) is used), meaning an explicit commit() call is required for changes to persist, and the session must always be closed — typically via try-with-resources — to release its underlying database connection back to the pool, regardless of whether the operations succeeded or failed.

In a Spring-managed application, this entire lifecycle is handled transparently: SqlSessionTemplate (injected via MyBatis-Spring) manages session creation, commit/rollback (tied to Spring's own transaction boundaries, like @Transactional), and closing automatically, which is why application code using MyBatis-Spring rarely interacts with SqlSession lifecycle methods directly at all.

What must always happen to a SqlSession regardless of success or failure?
What manages SqlSession lifecycle automatically in a Spring-managed application?

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What is MyBatis? What is the purpose of MyBatis? What are the key features of MyBatis? What is the difference between MyBatis and Hibernate? What is a SqlSessionFactory in MyBatis? What is a SqlSession in MyBatis? What is a Mapper interface in MyBatis? What is the mybatis-config.xml file used for? What is a Mapper XML file? How do you write a basic SELECT statement in MyBatis? What is parameter binding in MyBatis? What is result mapping? What are the supported statement types in MyBatis? What is the difference between #{} and ${} in MyBatis? What is a resultMap? How do you configure a data source in MyBatis? What is MyBatis-Spring? How do you integrate MyBatis with Spring Boot? What is dynamic SQL in MyBatis? List the dynamic SQL elements available in MyBatis? What is the difference between MyBatis and JPA/Hibernate in terms of philosophy? Why is #{} preferred over ${} for parameter binding? How does MyBatis prevent SQL injection? What is the difference between resultType and resultMap? What is the @Param annotation used for in MyBatis? Explain how MyBatis handles one-to-many mappings? Explain how MyBatis handles many-to-one mappings? What is the difference between association and collection in resultMap? What is lazy loading in MyBatis, and how do you configure it? Explain the lifecycle of a SqlSession? What is the difference between SqlSessionFactory and SqlSessionFactoryBuilder? How does MyBatis's first-level cache work? How does MyBatis's second-level cache work? What is the difference between first-level and second-level cache? Explain how to implement a custom TypeHandler in MyBatis? What is the purpose of the if, choose, when, otherwise dynamic SQL elements? Explain the internal working of the foreach element for batch operations? How do you handle batch inserts/updates in MyBatis? What is the Mapper proxy pattern, and how does MyBatis use it internally? Explain the execution flow of a MyBatis query from mapper call to result? What is the difference between MyBatis annotations and XML mapping? How do you use MyBatis with multiple data sources? Explain the role of the Executor in MyBatis's internal architecture, including the SIMPLE, REUSE, and BATCH executor types? How does MyBatis handle transactions, and how does it integrate with Spring's transaction management? What is a plugin/interceptor in MyBatis, and how do you write one? Explain how pagination is typically implemented in MyBatis? What is the N+1 select problem, and how does it relate to MyBatis? How do you troubleshoot a MyBatis mapping exception? Explain the internal working of MyBatis's dynamic SQL parsing? Explain the execution flow of MyBatis-Spring-Boot-Starter's auto-configuration?
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