@PrePersist

From CauchoWiki

The @PrePersist annotation marks an entity's method as a callback before a new entity is created in the database.

Applications can use @PreUpdate to process the persistent state of an entity before the entity is created.

 import javax.persistence.*;
 
   @Entity
   public class MyEntity {
       @Id getId() { ... }
 
       @PrePersist
       public void beforeCreate()
       {
          ...
       }
       
       ...
   }

[edit] Definition

 @Target(METHOD)
 @Retention(RUNTIME)
 public @interface PrePersist {
 }