Will I get in trouble for changing table and column names from upper to camelcase with JPA?

Question

The column and table names that JPA providers create when you're not using @Column tags and the like, are always capitalized. I think the JPA spec even says they should. But is there a specific technical reason, like backends that are case insensitive?

In other words, will my habit of always setting camelcased names with the name argument to the @Column annotation turn around and bite me one day?

(Note that I appreciate convention over configuration, but sometimes I just want to have my way.)

Answer 1

If the operating system where your database is running is case-sensitive, then the casing of table names must be correct.

In Linux, the following refer to different columns:

@Column(name="MY_TABLE")

@Column(name="my_table")

Answer 2

Having underscore-separated names for database objects is a bit of a historical habit, mainly because database systems are often case-insensitive. In this situation, having a table name where the words all run together is rather unreadable (e.g. MYLONGTABLENAMEISNTVERYREADABLE). Using underscores is just a naming convention to make things easier to read, just like camel case is.

If you move from underscore-separated to camel case, you'll be OK, since JPA implementations are designed to work with case-sensitive as well as case-insensitive databases.