# Entities A persistent entity is a boxlang class that is marked as a database entity via the `persistent` annotation upon the class definition: ```js class persistent="true"{ } ``` By default, the entity name will be the boxlang class file name - minus the file extension, of course. We can modify the entity name via the `entityname` annotation: ```js class persistent="true" entityname="Author" { } ``` And the table name via the `table` annotation: ```js class persistent="true" entityname="Author" table="authors" { } ``` Here's the full list of available annotations for a persistent class:

Attribute	Type	Default	Description
`persistent`	`boolean`	`false`	Mark this class as an ORM entity
`entityname`	`string`		Set a custom entity name which is different than the boxlang class name
`table`	`string`		Specify the database table name
`schema`	`string`		Specify the database schema name.
`catalog`	`string`		Specify the database catalog name.
`dynamicinsert`			Specifies whether INSERT SQL is to be generated at runtime. Only those columns whose values are not null are included in the SQL.
`dynamicinsert`	`boolean`	`false`	Specifies whether INSERT SQL is to be generated at runtime. Only those columns whose values are not null are included in the SQL.
`dynamicupdate`	`boolean`	`false`	Specifies whether UPDATE SQL is to be generated at runtime. Only those columns whose values are not null are included in the SQL.
`readonly`	`boolean`	`false`	Specify whether table is readonly or not
`selectbeforeupdate`	`boolean`		Specify whether Hibernate should never perform an SQL UPDATE unless it is certain that an object is actually modified. In cases when a transient object is associated with a new session using update(), Hibernate performs an extra SQL SELECT to determine if an UPDATE is actually required.
`optimisticlock`	`string`		Determines the locking strategy. It can be any one of:`all`,`dirty`,`version`,`none`
`batchsize`	`integer`		An integer value that specifies the number of records to be retrieved at a single instance.
`lazy`	`boolean`	`true`	Whether loading is to be done lazily or not.
`rowid`	`string`		Specify the row id
`discriminatorColumn`	`string`		Use this attribute to define the discriminator column to be used in inheritance mapping
`discriminatorValue`	`string`		Use this attribute to define the discriminator value to be used in inheritance mapping
`joinColumn`	`string`		Define a join column for inheritance mapping
`embedded`	`boolean`		Marks class as embedded, used when a class has an embedded object which also needs to be persisted along with the parent's data
`cacheUse`	`string`		Specify the caching strategy to be used for caching this entity's data in the secondary cache:`read-only`
`cacheName`	`string`		Specify the name of the secondary cache
`saveMapping`	`boolean`	`false`	Specifies whether the generated Hibernate mapping file has to be saved to disk. If you set the value to true, the Hibernate mapping XML file is saved as `{class name}.hbm.xml` in the same directory as the boxlang class.
`datasource`	`string`		Name a specific datasource to persist this entity to.

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