The Java Persistence Query Language (JPQL) is a platform-independent object-oriented query language defined as part of the Java Persistence API (JPA) specification. JPQL is used to make queries against entities stored in a relational database. It is heavily inspired by SQL, and its queries resemble SQL queries in syntax, but operate against JPA entity objects rather than directly with database tables. In addition to retrieving objects (SELECT queries), JPQL supports set based UPDATE and DELETE queries.