How to Ensure Spring Boot Automatically Creates Database Schema on Startup

What is the correct configuration for Spring Boot to automatically create a database schema on startup?

spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto = create

This guide provides solutions for configuring a Spring Boot application to ensure that the database schema is automatically created at startup. Proper configuration in the application.properties and ensuring correct entity annotations are essential steps.

spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=create
spring.jpa.hibernate.dialect=org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5Dialect
spring.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/test
spring.datasource.username=test
spring.datasource.password=

Causes

• Incorrect configuration in application.properties file.
• Entity classes may not be correctly defined or annotated for JPA.
• The database connection might not be established properly.

Solutions

• Ensure that the 'spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto' property is set to 'create', 'update', or 'create-drop' based on your requirements.
• Double-check the database connection URL and credentials in application.properties for correctness.
• Verify that Hibernate dialect matches your database (for MySQL, use 'org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5Dialect').
• Check that JPA entity classes are properly defined and annotated.

Mistake: Setting 'spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto' to 'none' which disables schema generation.

Solution: Change it to 'update' or 'create' to enable schema generation.

Mistake: Incorrect JPA entity annotations leading to Hibernate not recognizing entities.

Solution: Ensure all required annotations such as @Entity and @Table are properly used.

Mistake: Using an outdated MySQL JDBC driver resulting in connection issues.

Solution: Update your MySQL connector to the latest version.