JDO 1.0 and JDO 2.0 support specification of persistence using XML MetaData. JDO 2.1 adds on the ability to specify persistence using Java5 annotations.
JDO expects any XML MetaData to be specified in a file or files in particular positions in the file system. For example, if you have a class com.mycompany.sample.MyExample, JDO will look for any of the following files until it finds one (in the order stated) :-
META-INF/package.jdo WEB-INF/package.jdo package.jdo com/package.jdo com/mycompany/package.jdo com/mycompany/sample/package.jdo com/mycompany/sample/MyExample.jdo
In addition to specifying XML MetaData in a jdo file, if defining O/R mapping information you can also split this out into an ORM file. The locations for ORM files are similar in nature to those for JDO files.
META-INF/package-{mapping}.orm
WEB-INF/package-{mapping}.orm
package-{mapping}.orm
com/package-{mapping}.orm
com/mycompany/package-{mapping}.orm
com/mycompany/sample/package-{mapping}.orm
com/mycompany/sample/MyExample-{mapping}.ormwhere {mapping} is a property specified by the user and may be "mysql" for ORM information for MySQL datastores, and "oracle" for ORM information for Oracle datastores, and so on.