Difference between configuring data source in persistence.xml and in spring configuration files

Question

I've seen (and done) data source configuration in two ways (the code below is just for demo):

1) configuration inside persistence units, like:

<persistence-unit name="LocalDB" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
    <class>domain.User</class>
    <exclude-unlisted-classes>true</exclude-unlisted-classes>
    <properties>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class" value="org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver"/>
        <property name="hibernate.connection.url" value="jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost"/>
        <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="create"/>
        <property name="hibernate.c3p0.min_size" value="5"/>
        ....
        <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect"/>
    </properties>
</persistence-unit>

2) configuration inside spring configuration files (like applicationContext.xml):

<bean id="domainEntityManagerFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean">
    <property name="persistenceUnitName" value="JiraManager"/>
    <property name="dataSource" ref="domainDataSource"/>
    <property name="jpaVendorAdapter">
        <bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.HibernateJpaVendorAdapter">
            <property name="generateDdl" value="false"/>
            <property name="showSql" value="false"/>
            <property name="databasePlatform" value="${hibernate.dialect}"/>
        </bean>
    </property>
</bean>

<bean id="domainDataSource" class="com.mchange.v2.c3p0.ComboPooledDataSource" destroy-method="close">
    <property name="driverClass" value="${db.driver}" />
    <property name="jdbcUrl" value="${datasource.url}" />
    <property name="user" value="${datasource.username}" />
    <property name="password" value="${datasource.password}" />
    <property name="initialPoolSize" value="5"/>
    <property name="minPoolSize" value="5"/>
    .....
</bean>

The question is: are there any pros and cons of each way, or it's just a matter of taste?

Answer 1

It is strictly personal preference.

My suggestion would be to use Spring's configuration if you are using Spring already. Its purpose is dependency injection and management so let it do its job with respect to your dependency on a database. If, however, you are not already using Spring, stick with the persistence configuration considering that this will keep your project simpler while still functional. I will suggest though that any project that needs Hibernate to interact with a database is probably big enough to condone using Spring within.