We'll keep all the fields selected and click OK. IntelliJ IDEA generates the getters and setters for both variables.įinally, let's generate a toString method by bring up the Generate menu again ⌘N (macOS) / Alt+Insert (Windows/Linux) and selecting toString. We'll hold down ⌘ (macOS) / Ctrl (Windows/Linux) and select both variables. We'll bring up the Generate menu ⌘N (macOS) / Alt+Insert (Windows/Linux) and select Getter and Setter. Next, we'll generate our field's setters and getters. If you press Alt+Enter (Windows/Linux), or ⌥⏎ (macOS), on the error, IntelliJ IDEA offers to create it for you - let's go ahead and do that. You'll now notice that you have an error on your Employee class because you don't have a no-arg constructor. We don't need the constructor to take in an id because ours will be generated so we'll click on firstName then hold down ⌘ (macOS) / Ctrl (Windows/Linux) and select lastName. Next, we'll generate our constructors by bringing up the Generate menu ⌘N (macOS) / Alt+Insert (Windows/Linux) and select Constructor. Next, let's add a couple of String fields: firstName and lastName. You'll notice that IntelliJ IDEA creates an id field with its setters and getters. You can also select the Generated checkbox so you don't have to assign Employee Ids yourself. You can select the Field Access checkbox (I prefer annotations on fields instead of the setter methods because I find it more readable). We'll use the ⌥⏎ (macOS) / Alt+Enter (Windows/Linux) shortcut so IntelliJ IDEA can add the ID for us which will result in a prompt to enter the ID field's information. Once you do that, you'll notice an error in your class.Īs the error message indicates, entities must have a primary key which is specified by having a field annotated by the annotation. In the Employee class, we'll make it an entity by adding the annotation to our class definition and importing the package. Choose Java Class and then type in our entity name - Employee. In the Project window, we'll navigate to our src/main/java directory, select the package and press ⌘N (macOS) / Alt+Insert (Windows/Linux).

For our application, we will create an Employee entity that we will use to insert Employee data into an Employee table in our database. An Entity is a Java class representing data you want to insert into a database.

Spring entity annotation