Persistent objects and collections are short lived single threaded objects, which store the persistent state. These objects synchronize their state with the database depending on your flush strategy (i.e. auto-flush where as soon as setXXX() method is called or an item is removed from a Set, List etc or define your own synchronization points with session.flush(),transaction.commit() calls).

If you remove an item from a persistent collection like a Set, it will be removed from the database either immediately or when flush() or commit() is called depending on your flush strategy. They are Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs) and are currently associated with a session. As soon as the associated session is closed, persistent objects become detached objects and are free to use directly as data transfer objects in any application layers like business layer, presentation layer etc.

Detached objects and collections are instances of persistent objects that were associated with a session but currently not associated with a session. These objects can be freely used as Data Transfer Objects without having any impact on your database. Detached objects can be later on attached to another session by calling methods like session.update(), session.saveOrUpdate() etc. and become persistent objects.

Transient objects and collections are instances of persistent objects that were never associated with a session. These objects can be freely used as Data Transfer Objects without having any impact on your database. Transient objects become persistent objects when associated to a session by calling methods like session.save( ), session.persist( ) etc.

As given in the figure on next page.