Hibernate Annotations

Reference Guide
3.5.1-Final

by Emmanuel Bernard
Preface ............................................................................................................................. v
1. Setting up an annotations project ............................................................................... 1
1.1. Requirements ..................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Configuration ...................................................................................................... 1
1.3. Properties ........................................................................................................... 4
1.4. Logging .............................................................................................................. 5
2. Mapping Entities .......................................................................................................... 7
2.1. Intro ................................................................................................................... 7
2.2. Mapping with JPA (Java Persistence Annotations) ................................................ 7
2.2.1. Marking a POJO as persistent entity ......................................................... 7
2.2.2. Mapping simple properties ........................................................................ 9
2.2.3. Mapping identifier properties ................................................................... 15
2.2.4. Mapping inheritance ............................................................................... 24
2.2.5. Mapping entity associations/relationships ................................................. 28
2.2.6. Mapping composite primary keys and foreign keys to composite primary
keys ................................................................................................................ 43
2.2.7. Mapping secondary tables ...................................................................... 45
2.2.8. Caching entities ..................................................................................... 45
2.3. Mapping Queries .............................................................................................. 47
2.3.1. Mapping JP-QL/HQL queries .................................................................. 47
2.3.2. Mapping native queries .......................................................................... 48
2.4. Hibernate Annotation Extensions ....................................................................... 52
2.4.1. Entity ..................................................................................................... 52
2.4.2. Identifier ................................................................................................ 55
2.4.3. Property ................................................................................................. 56
2.4.4. Inheritance ............................................................................................. 60
2.4.5. Single Association related annotations ..................................................... 60
2.4.6. Collection related annotations ................................................................. 63
2.4.7. Cascade ................................................................................................ 66
2.4.8. Filters .................................................................................................... 67
2.4.9. Queries .................................................................................................. 68
2.4.10. Custom SQL for CRUD operations ........................................................ 69
2.4.11. Tuplizer ................................................................................................ 70
2.4.12. Fetch profiles ....................................................................................... 71
3. Overriding metadata through XML ............................................................................. 73
3.1. Principles .......................................................................................................... 73
3.1.1. Global level metadata ............................................................................. 73
3.1.2. Entity level metadata .............................................................................. 74
3.1.3. Property level metadata .......................................................................... 76
3.1.4. Association level metadata ..................................................................... 77
4. Additional modules .................................................................................................... 79
4.1. Bean Validation ................................................................................................ 79
4.1.1. Adding Bean Validation .......................................................................... 79
4.1.2. Configuration .......................................................................................... 79

iii
Hibernate Annotations

4.1.3. Catching violations ................................................................................. 81

4.1.4. Database schema .................................................................................. 81
4.2. Hibernate Validator 3 ........................................................................................ 82
4.2.1. Description ............................................................................................. 82
4.2.2. Integration with Hibernate Annotations ..................................................... 82
4.3. Hibernate Search .............................................................................................. 83
4.3.1. Description ............................................................................................. 83
4.3.2. Integration with Hibernate Annotations ..................................................... 83

iv
Preface

Hibernate, like all other object/relational mapping tools, requires metadata that governs the
transformation of data from one representation to the other. Hibernate Annotations provides
annotation-based mapping metadata.

The JPA specification recognizes the interest and the success of the transparent object/
relational mapping paradigm. It standardizes the basic APIs and the metadata needed for any
object/relational persistence mechanism. Hibernate EntityManager implements the programming
interfaces and lifecycle rules as defined by the JPA persistence specification and together with
Hibernate Annotations offers a complete (and standalone) JPA persistence solution on top of the
mature Hibernate Core. You may use a combination of all three together, annotations without
JPA programming interfaces and lifecycle, or even pure native Hibernate Core, depending on the
business and technical needs of your project. At all time you can fall back to Hibernate native
APIs, or if required, even to native JDBC and SQL.

This release of Hibernate Annotations is based on the final release of the JPA 2 specification (aka
JSR-317 [http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=317]) and supports all its features (including the optional
ones). Hibernate specific features and extensions are also available through unstandardized,
Hibernate specific annotations.

If you are moving from previous Hibernate Annotations versions, please have a look at Java
Persistence migration guide [http://www.hibernate.org/398.html].

v
vi
Chapter 1.

Setting up an annotations project

1.1. Requirements

• Make sure you have JDK 5.0 or above installed.

• Download and unpack the Hibernate Core distribution from the Hibernate website. Hibernate
3.5 and onward contains Hibernate Annotations.

• Alternatively add the following dependency in your dependency manager (like Maven or Ivy).
Here is an example

<project ...>
...
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-annotations</artifactId>
<version>${hibernate-core-version}</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>

1.2. Configuration
First, set up your classpath (after you have created a new project in your favorite IDE):

• Copy hibernate3.jar and the required 3rd party libraries available in lib/required.

• Copy lib/jpa/hibernate-jpa-2.0-api-1.0.0.Final.jar to your classpath as well.

Alternatively, import your pom.xml in your favorite IDE and let the dependencies be resolved
automatically,

What is hibernate-jpa-2.0-api-x.y.z.jar

This is the JAR containing the JPA 2.0 API, it is fully compliant with the spec and
passed the TCK signature test. You typically don't need it when you deploy your
application in a Java EE 6 application server (like JBoss AS 6 for example).

We recommend you use Hibernate Validator [http://validator.hibernate.org] and the Bean

Validation specification capabilities as its integration with Java Persistence 2 has been

1
Chapter 1. Setting up an anno...

standardized. Download Hibernate Validator 4 or above from the Hibernate website and add
hibernate-validator.jar and validation-api.jar in your classpath. Alternatively add the
following dependency in your pom.xml.

<project>
...
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-validator</artifactId>
<version>${hibernate-validator-version}</version>
</dependency>
...
</dependencies>
...
</project>

If you wish to use Hibernate Search [http://search.hibernate.org], download it from the Hibernate
website and add hibernate-search.jar and its dependencies in your classpath. Alternatively
add the following dependency in your pom.xml.

<project>
...
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-search</artifactId>
<version>${hibernate-search-version}</version>
</dependency>
...
</dependencies>
...
</project>

We recommend you use the JPA 2 APIs to bootstrap Hibernate (see the Hibernate EntityManager
documentation for more information). If you use Hibernate Core and its native APIs read on.

If you boot Hibernate yourself, make sure to use the AnnotationConfiguration class instead of
the Configuration class. Here is an example using the (legacy) HibernateUtil approach:

package hello;

import org.hibernate.*;
import org.hibernate.cfg.*;
import test.*;
import test.animals.Dog;

public class HibernateUtil {

private static final SessionFactory sessionFactory;

2
 Configuration

static {
try {
sessionFactory = new AnnotationConfiguration()
.configure().buildSessionFactory();
} catch (Throwable ex) {
// Log exception!
throw new ExceptionInInitializerError(ex);
}
}

public static Session getSession()

throws HibernateException {
return sessionFactory.openSession();
}
}

Interesting here is the use of AnnotationConfiguration. The packages and annotated classes
are declared in your regular XML configuration file (usually hibernate.cfg.xml). Here is the
equivalent of the above declaration:

<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC

"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-configuration>
<session-factory>
<mapping package="test.animals"/>
<mapping class="test.Flight"/>
<mapping class="test.Sky"/>
<mapping class="test.Person"/>
<mapping class="test.animals.Dog"/>

<mapping resource="test/animals/orm.xml"/>
</session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>

Note that you can mix the legacy hbm.xml use and the annotation approach. The resource element
can be either an hbm file or an EJB3 XML deployment descriptor. The distinction is transparent
for your configuration process.

Alternatively, you can define the annotated classes and packages using the programmatic API

sessionFactory = new AnnotationConfiguration()

.addPackage("test.animals") //the fully qualified package name
.addAnnotatedClass(Flight.class)
.addAnnotatedClass(Sky.class)
.addAnnotatedClass(Person.class)
.addAnnotatedClass(Dog.class)
.addResource("test/animals/orm.xml")
.configure()
.buildSessionFactory();

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Chapter 1. Setting up an anno...

There is no other difference in the way you use Hibernate APIs with annotations, except for this
startup routine change or in the configuration file. You can use your favorite configuration method
for other properties ( hibernate.properties, hibernate.cfg.xml, programmatic APIs, etc).

Note

You can mix annotated persistent classes and classic hbm.cfg.xml declarations
with the same SessionFactory. You can however not declare a class several
times (whether annotated or through hbm.xml). You cannot mix configuration
strategies (hbm vs annotations) in an entity hierarchy either.

To ease the migration process from hbm files to annotations, the configuration mechanism
detects the mapping duplication between annotations and hbm files. HBM files are then
prioritized over annotated metadata on a class to class basis. You can change the priority using
hibernate.mapping.precedence property. The default is hbm, class, changing it to class,
hbm will prioritize the annotated classes over hbm files when a conflict occurs.

1.3. Properties
On top of the Hibernate Core properties, Hibernate Annotations reacts to the following one.

Table 1.1. Hibernate Annotations specific properties

Property Function
Setting used to give the name of the default
hibernate.cache.default_cache_concurrency_strategy
org.hibernate.annotations.CacheConcurrencyStrategy
to use when either @Cacheable @Cache} is
used. @Cache(strategy="..") is used to
override this default.
hibernate.id.new_generator_mappings true or false. Setting which indicates
whether or not the new IdentifierGenerator
implementations are used for AUTO, TABLE
and SEQUENCE. Default to false to keep
backward compatibility.

Note

We recommend all new projects to use

hibernate.id.new_generator_mappings=true as the new generators are more
efficient and closer to the JPA 2 specification semantic. However they are not
backward compatible with existing databases (if a sequence or a table is used for
id generation).

4
 Logging

1.4. Logging
Hibernate Annotations utilizes Simple Logging Facade for Java [http://www.slf4j.org/] (SLF4J)
in order to log various system events. SLF4J can direct your logging output to several logging
frameworks (NOP, Simple, log4j version 1.2, JDK 1.4 logging, JCL or logback) depending on your
chosen binding. In order to setup logging properly you will need slf4j-api.jar in your classpath
together with the jar file for your preferred binding - slf4j-log4j12.jar in the case of Log4J.
See the SLF4J documentation [http://www.slf4j.org/manual.html] for more detail.

The logging categories interesting for Hibernate Annotations are:

Table 1.2. Hibernate Annotations Log Categories

Category Function
org.hibernate.cfg Log all configuration related events (not only
annotations).

For further category configuration refer to the Logging [http://www.hibernate.org/hib_docs/v3/

reference/en/html_single/#configuration-logging] in the Hibernate Core documentation.

5
6
Chapter 2.

Mapping Entities
2.1. Intro
This section explains how to describe persistence mappings using Java Persistence 2.0
annotations as well as Hibernate-specific annotation extensions.

2.2. Mapping with JPA (Java Persistence Annotations)

JPA entities are plain POJOs. Actually, they are Hibernate persistent entities. Their mappings are
defined through JDK 5.0 annotations instead of hbm.xml files. A JPA 2 XML descriptor syntax
for overriding is defined as well). Annotations can be split in two categories, the logical mapping
annotations (describing the object model, the association between two entities etc.) and the
physical mapping annotations (describing the physical schema, tables, columns, indexes, etc).
We will mix annotations from both categories in the following code examples.

JPA annotations are in the javax.persistence.* package. You favorite IDE can auto-complete
annotations and their attributes for you (even without a specific "JPA" module, since JPA
annotations are plain JDK 5 annotations).

A good an complete set of working examples can be found in the Hibernate Annotations test suite
itself: most of the unit tests have been designed to represent a concrete example and be a source
of inspiration for you. You can get the test suite sources in the distribution.

2.2.1. Marking a POJO as persistent entity

Every persistent POJO class is an entity and is declared using the @Entity annotation (at the
class level):

@Entity
public class Flight implements Serializable {
Long id;

@Id
public Long getId() { return id; }

public void setId(Long id) { this.id = id; }

}

@Entity declares the class as an entity (i.e. a persistent POJO class), @Id declares the identifier
property of this entity. The other mapping declarations are implicit. The class Flight is mapped to
the Flight table, using the column id as its primary key column.

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

Note

The concept of configuration by exception is central to the JPA specification.

Depending on whether you annotate fields or methods, the access type used by Hibernate will be
field or property. The EJB3 spec requires that you declare annotations on the element type
that will be accessed, i.e. the getter method if you use property access, the field if you use field
access. Mixing annotations in both fields and methods should be avoided. Hibernate will guess
the access type from the position of @Id or @EmbeddedId.

2.2.1.1. Defining the table

@Table is set at the class level; it allows you to define the table, catalog, and schema names for
your entity mapping. If no @Table is defined the default values are used: the unqualified class
name of the entity.

@Entity
@Table(name="tbl_sky")
public class Sky implements Serializable {
...
}

The @Table element contains a schema and catalog attributes, if they need to be defined. You can
also define unique constraints to the table using the @UniqueConstraint annotation in conjunction
with @Table (for a unique constraint bound to a single column, it is recommended to use the
@Column.unique approach (refer to @Column for more information).

@Table(name="tbl_sky",
uniqueConstraints = {@UniqueConstraint(columnNames={"month", "day"})}
)

A unique constraint is applied to the tuple month, day. Note that the columnNames array refers
to the logical column names.
The logical column name is defined by the Hibernate NamingStrategy implementation. The
default JPA naming strategy uses the physical column name as the logical column name
but it could be different if for example you append fld_ to all your columns using a custom
NamingStrategy implementation. Note that the logical column name is not necessarily equals
to the property name esp when the column name is explicitly set. Unless you override the
NamingStrategy, you shouldn't worry about that.

2.2.1.2. Versioning for optimistic locking

You can add optimistic locking capability to an entity using the @Version annotation:

8
 Mapping simple properties

@Entity
public class Flight implements Serializable {
...
@Version
@Column(name="OPTLOCK")
public Integer getVersion() { ... }
}

The version property will be mapped to the OPTLOCK column, and the entity manager will use it to
detect conflicting updates (preventing lost updates you might otherwise see with the last-commit-
wins strategy).

The version column may be a numeric (the recommended solution) or a timestamp.

Hibernate supports any kind of type provided that you define and implement the appropriate
UserVersionType.

The application must not alter the version number set up by Hibernate in
any way. To artificially increase the version number, check in Hibernate Entity
Manager's reference documentation LockModeType.OPTIMISTIC_FORCE_INCREMENT or
LockModeType.PESSIMISTIC_FORCE_INCREMENT.

2.2.2. Mapping simple properties

2.2.2.1. Declaring basic property mappings

Every non static non transient property (field or method depending on the access type) of an entity
is considered persistent, unless you annotate it as @Transient. Not having an annotation for your
property is equivalent to the appropriate @Basic annotation. The @Basic annotation allows you to
declare the fetching strategy for a property:

public transient int counter; //transient property

private String firstname; //persistent property

@Transient
String getLengthInMeter() { ... } //transient property

String getName() {... } // persistent property

@Basic
int getLength() { ... } // persistent property

@Basic(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
String getDetailedComment() { ... } // persistent property

@Temporal(TemporalType.TIME)
java.util.Date getDepartureTime() { ... } // persistent property

@Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
Starred getNote() { ... } //enum persisted as String in database

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

counter, a transient field, and lengthInMeter, a method annotated as @Transient, and will be
ignored by the entity manager. name, length, and firstname properties are mapped persistent
and eagerly fetched (the default for simple properties). The detailedComment property value will
be lazily fetched from the database once a lazy property of the entity is accessed for the first time.
Usually you don't need to lazy simple properties (not to be confused with lazy association fetching).

Note

To enable property level lazy fetching, your classes have to be instrumented:

bytecode is added to the original class to enable such feature, please refer to the
Hibernate reference documentation. If your classes are not instrumented, property
level lazy loading is silently ignored.

The recommended alternative is to use the projection capability of JP-QL (Java Persistence Query
Language) or Criteria queries.

JPA support property mapping of all basic types supported by Hibernate (all basic Java types ,
their respective wrappers and serializable classes). Hibernate Annotations support out of the box
enum type mapping either into a ordinal column (saving the enum ordinal) or a string based column
(saving the enum string representation): the persistence representation, defaulted to ordinal, can
be overridden through the @Enumerated annotation as shown in the note property example.

In plain Java APIs, the temporal precision of time is not defined. When dealing with temporal
data you might want to describe the expected precision in database. Temporal data can have
DATE, TIME, or TIMESTAMP precision (ie the actual date, only the time, or both). Use the @Temporal
annotation to fine tune that.

@Lob indicates that the property should be persisted in a Blob or a Clob depending on the property
type: java.sql.Clob, Character[], char[] and java.lang.String will be persisted in a Clob.
java.sql.Blob, Byte[], byte[] and serializable type will be persisted in a Blob.

@Lob
public String getFullText() {
return fullText;
}

@Lob
public byte[] getFullCode() {
return fullCode;
}

If the property type implements java.io.Serializable and is not a basic type, and if the property
is not annotated with @Lob, then the Hibernate serializable type is used.

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 Mapping simple properties

2.2.2.2. Access type

By default the access type of a class hierarchy is defined by the position of the @Id or @EmbeddedId
annotations. If these annotations are on a field, then only fields are considered for persistence
and the state is accessed via the field. If there annotations are on a getter, then only the getters
are considered for persistence and the state is accessed via the getter/setter. That works well in
practice and is the recommended approach.

Note
The placement of annotations within a class hierarchy has to be consistent
(either field or on property) to be able to determine the default access type. It is
recommended to stick to one single annotation placement strategy throughout your
whole application.

However in some situations, you need to:

• force the access type of the entity hierarchy

• override the access type of a specific entity in the class hierarchy

• override the access type of an embeddable type

The best use case is an embeddable class used by several entities that might not use the same
access type. In this case it is better to force the access type at the embeddable class level.

To force the access type on a given class, use the @Access annotation as showed below:

@Entity
public class Order {
@Id private Long id;
public Long getId() { return id; }
public void setId(Long id) { this.id = id; }

@Embedded private Address address;

public Address getAddress() { return address; }
public void setAddress() { this.address = address; }
}

@Entity
public class User {
private Long id;
@Id public Long getId() { return id; }
public void setId(Long id) { this.id = id; }

private Address address;

@Embedded public Address getAddress() { return address; }
public void setAddress() { this.address = address; }
}

@Embeddable

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

@Access(AcessType.PROPERTY)
public class Address {
private String street1;
public String getStreet1() { return street1; }
public void setStreet1() { this.street1 = street1; }

private hashCode; //not persistent

}

You can also override the access type of a single property while keeping the other properties
standard.

@Entity
public class Order {
@Id private Long id;
public Long getId() { return id; }
public void setId(Long id) { this.id = id; }
@Transient private String userId;
@Transient private String orderId;

@Access(AccessType.PROPERTY)
public String getOrderNumber() { return userId + ":" + orderId; }
public void setOrderNumber() { this.userId = ...; this.orderId = ...; }
}

In this example, the default access type is FIELD except for the orderNumber property. Note that
the corresponding field, if any must be marked as @Transient or transient.

@org.hibernate.annotations.AccessType
The annotation @org.hibernate.annotations.AccessType should be
considered deprecated for FIELD and PROPERTY access. It is still useful however
if you need to use a custom access type.

2.2.2.3. Declaring column attributes

The column(s) used for a property mapping can be defined using the @Column annotation. Use it
to override default values (see the EJB3 specification for more information on the defaults). You
can use this annotation at the property level for properties that are:

• not annotated at all

• annotated with @Basic

• annotated with @Version

• annotated with @Lob

• annotated with @Temporal

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 Mapping simple properties

@Entity
public class Flight implements Serializable {
...
@Column(updatable = false, name = "flight_name", nullable = false, length=50)
public String getName() { ... }

The name property is mapped to the flight_name column, which is not nullable, has a length of
50 and is not updatable (making the property immutable).

This annotation can be applied to regular properties as well as @Id or @Version properties.

@Column(

name="columnName";

boolean unique() default false;

boolean nullable() default true;

boolean insertable() default true;

boolean updatable() default true;

String columnDefinition() default "";

String table() default "";

int length() default 255;

int precision() default 0; // decimal precision

int scale() default 0; // decimal scale

name (optional): the column name (default to the property name)

unique (optional): set a unique constraint on this column or not (default false)
nullable (optional): set the column as nullable (default true).
insertable (optional): whether or not the column will be part of the insert statement (default
true)
updatable (optional): whether or not the column will be part of the update statement (default
true)
columnDefinition (optional): override the sql DDL fragment for this particular column (non
portable)
table (optional): define the targeted table (default primary table)
length (optional): column length (default 255)
precision (optional): column decimal precision (default 0)
scale (optional): column decimal scale if useful (default 0)

2.2.2.4. Embedded objects (aka components)

It is possible to declare an embedded component inside an entity and even override its column
mapping. Component classes have to be annotated at the class level with the @Embeddable

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

annotation. It is possible to override the column mapping of an embedded object for a particular
entity using the @Embedded and @AttributeOverride annotation in the associated property:

@Entity
public class Person implements Serializable {

// Persistent component using defaults

Address homeAddress;

@Embedded
@AttributeOverrides( {
@AttributeOverride(name="iso2", column = @Column(name="bornIso2") ),
@AttributeOverride(name="name", column = @Column(name="bornCountryName") )
} )
Country bornIn;
...
}

@Embeddable
public class Address implements Serializable {
String city;
Country nationality; //no overriding here
}

@Embeddable
public class Country implements Serializable {
private String iso2;
@Column(name="countryName") private String name;

public String getIso2() { return iso2; }

public void setIso2(String iso2) { this.iso2 = iso2; }

public String getName() { return name; }

public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; }
...
}

An embeddable object inherits the access type of its owning entity (note that you can override
that using the @Access annotation).

The Person entity has two component properties, homeAddress and bornIn. homeAddress
property has not been annotated, but Hibernate will guess that it is a persistent component by
looking for the @Embeddable annotation in the Address class. We also override the mapping of a
column name (to bornCountryName) with the @Embedded and @AttributeOverride annotations
for each mapped attribute of Country. As you can see, Country is also a nested component
of Address, again using auto-detection by Hibernate and JPA defaults. Overriding columns of
embedded objects of embedded objects is through dotted expressions.

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 Mapping identifier properties

@Embedded
@AttributeOverrides( {
@AttributeOverride(name="city", column = @Column(name="fld_city") ),
@AttributeOverride(name="nationality.iso2", column = @Column(name="nat_Iso2") ),
@AttributeOverride(name="nationality.name", column = @Column(name="nat_CountryName") )
//nationality columns in homeAddress are overridden
} )
Address homeAddress;

Hibernate Annotations supports something that is not explicitly supported by the JPA specification.
You can annotate a embedded object with the @MappedSuperclass annotation to make the
superclass properties persistent (see @MappedSuperclass for more informations).

You can also use association annotations in an embeddable object (ie @OneToOne,
@ManyToOne, @OneToMany or @ManyToMany). To override the association columns you can use
@AssociationOverride.

If you want to have the same embeddable object type twice in the same entity, the column name
defaulting will not work as several embedded objects would share the same set of columns. In
plain JPA, you need to override at least one set of columns. Hibernate, however, allows you to
enhance the default naming mechanism through the NamingStrategy interface. You can write a
strategy that prevent name clashing in such a situation. DefaultComponentSafeNamingStrategy
is an example of this.

2.2.2.5. Non-annotated property defaults

If a property is not annotated, the following rules apply:

• If the property is of a single type, it is mapped as @Basic

• Otherwise, if the type of the property is annotated as @Embeddable, it is mapped as

@Embedded

• Otherwise, if the type of the property is Serializable, it is mapped as @Basic in a column

holding the object in its serialized version

• Otherwise, if the type of the property is java.sql.Clob or java.sql.Blob, it is mapped as

@Lob with the appropriate LobType

2.2.3. Mapping identifier properties

The @Id annotation lets you define which property is the identifier of your entity. This property
can be set by the application itself or be generated by Hibernate (preferred). You can define the
identifier generation strategy thanks to the @GeneratedValue annotation.

2.2.3.1. Generating the identifier property

JPA defines five types of identifier generation strategies:

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

• AUTO - either identity column, sequence or table depending on the underlying DB

• TABLE - table holding the id

• IDENTITY - identity column

• SEQUENCE - sequence

• identity copy - the identity is copied from another entity

Hibernate provides more id generators than the basic JPA ones. Check Section 2.4, “Hibernate
Annotation Extensions” for more informations.

The following example shows a sequence generator using the SEQ_STORE configuration (see
below)

@Id @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.SEQUENCE, generator="SEQ_STORE")

public Integer getId() { ... }

The next example uses the identity generator:

@Id @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)
public Long getId() { ... }

The AUTO generator is the preferred type for portable applications (across several DB vendors).
The identifier generation configuration can be shared for several @Id mappings with the
generator attribute. There are several configurations available through @SequenceGenerator
and @TableGenerator. The scope of a generator can be the application or the class. Class-
defined generators are not visible outside the class and can override application level generators.
Application level generators are defined at XML level (see Chapter 3, Overriding metadata through
XML):

<table-generator name="EMP_GEN"
table="GENERATOR_TABLE"
pk-column-name="key"
value-column-name="hi"
pk-column-value="EMP"
allocation-size="20"/>

//and the annotation equivalent

@javax.persistence.TableGenerator(
name="EMP_GEN",
table="GENERATOR_TABLE",
pkColumnName = "key",
valueColumnName = "hi"
pkColumnValue="EMP",
allocationSize=20

16
 Mapping identifier properties

<sequence-generator name="SEQ_GEN"
sequence-name="my_sequence"
allocation-size="20"/>

//and the annotation equivalent

@javax.persistence.SequenceGenerator(
name="SEQ_GEN",
sequenceName="my_sequence",
allocationSize=20
)

If JPA XML (like META-INF/orm.xml) is used to define the generators, EMP_GEN and SEQ_GEN
are application level generators. EMP_GEN defines a table based id generator using the hilo
algorithm with a max_lo of 20. The hi value is kept in a table "GENERATOR_TABLE". The information
is kept in a row where pkColumnName "key" is equals to pkColumnValue "EMP" and column
valueColumnName "hi" contains the the next high value used.

SEQ_GEN defines a sequence generator using a sequence named my_sequence. The allocation
size used for this sequence based hilo algorithm is 20. Note that this version of Hibernate
Annotations does not handle initialValue in the sequence generator. The default allocation
size is 50, so if you want to use a sequence and pickup the value each time, you must set the
allocation size to 1.

Important
We recommend all new projects to use
hibernate.id.new_generator_mappings=true as the new generators are more
efficient and closer to the JPA 2 specification semantic. However they are not
backward compatible with existing databases (if a sequence or a table is used
for id generation). See Section 1.3, “Properties” for more information on how to
activate them.

Note
Package level definition is not supported by the JPA specification. However,
you can use the @GenericGenerator at the package level (see Section 2.4.2,
“Identifier”).

The next example shows the definition of a sequence generator in a class scope:

@Entity
@javax.persistence.SequenceGenerator(

17
Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

name="SEQ_STORE",
sequenceName="my_sequence"
)
public class Store implements Serializable {
private Long id;

@Id @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.SEQUENCE, generator="SEQ_STORE")

public Long getId() { return id; }
}

This class will use a sequence named my_sequence and the SEQ_STORE generator is not
visible in other classes. Note that you can check the Hibernate Annotations tests in the
org.hibernate.test.annotations.id package for more examples.

Finally, you can ask Hibernate to copy the identifier from another associated entity. In the
Hibernate jargon, it is known as a foreign generator but the JPA mapping reads better and is
encouraged.

@Entity
class MedicalHistory implements Serializable {
@Id @OneToOne
@JoinColumn(name = "person_id")
Person patient;
}

@Entity
public class Person implements Serializable {
@Id @GeneratedValue Integer id;
}

Or alternatively

@Entity
class MedicalHistory implements Serializable {
@Id Integer id;

@MapsId @OneToOne
@JoinColumn(name = "patient_id")
Person patient;
}

@Entity
class Person {
@Id @GeneratedValue Integer id;
}

If you are interested in more examples of "derived identities", the JPA 2 specification has a great
set of them in chapter 2.4.1.3.

But an identifier does not have to be a single property, it can be composed of several properties.

18
 Mapping identifier properties

2.2.3.2. Composite identifier

You can define a composite primary key through several syntaxes:

• use a component type to represent the identifier and map it as a property in the entity: you then
annotated the property as @EmbeddedId. The component type has to be Serializable.

• map multiple properties as @Id properties: the identifier type is then the entity class itself and
needs to be Serializable. This approach is unfortunately not standard and only supported
by Hibernate.

• map multiple properties as @Id properties and declare an external class to be the identifier
type. This class, which needs to be Serializable, is declared on the entity via the @IdClass
annotation. The identifier type must contain the same properties as the identifier properties of
the entity: each property name must be the same, its type must be the same as well if the entity
property is of a basic type, its type must be the type of the primary key of the associated entity
if the entity property is an association (either a @OneToOne or a @ManyToOne).

As you can see the last case is far from obvious. It has been inherited from the dark ages of EJB
2 for backward compatibilities and we recommend you not to use it (for simplicity sake).

Let's explore all three cases using examples.

2.2.3.2.1. @EmbeddedId property

Here is a simple example of @EmbeddedId.

@Entity
class User {
@EmbeddedId
@AttributeOverride(name="firstName", column=@Column(name="fld_firstname")
UserId id;

Integer age;
}

@Embeddable
class UserId implements Serializable {
String firstName;
String lastName;
}

You can notice that the UserId class is serializable. To override the column mapping, use
@AttributeOverride.

An embedded id can itself contains the primary key of an associated entity.

@Entity
class Customer {

19
Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

@EmbeddedId CustomerId id;

boolean preferredCustomer;

@MapsId("userId")
@JoinColumns({
@JoinColumn(name="userfirstname_fk", referencedColumnName="firstName"),
@JoinColumn(name="userlastname_fk", referencedColumnName="lastName")
})
@OneToOne User user;
}

@Embeddable
class CustomerId implements Serializable {
UserId userId;
String customerNumber;
}

@Entity
class User {
@EmbeddedId UserId id;
Integer age;
}

@Embeddable
class UserId implements Serializable {
String firstName;
String lastName;
}

In the embedded id object, the association is represented as the identifier of the associated
entity. But you can link its value to a regular association in the entity via the @MapsId annotation.
The @MapsId value correspond to the property name of the embedded id object containing
the associated entity's identifier. In the database, it means that the Customer.user and the
CustomerId.userId properties share the same underlying column (user_fk in this case).

In practice, your code only sets the Customer.user property and the user id value is copied by
Hibernate into the CustomerId.userId property.

Warning
The id value can be copied as late as flush time, don't rely on it until after flush time.

While not supported in JPA, Hibernate lets you place your association directly in the embedded
id component (instead of having to use the @MapsId annotation).

@Entity
class Customer {
@EmbeddedId CustomerId id;
boolean preferredCustomer;
}

@Embeddable

20
 Mapping identifier properties

class CustomerId implements Serializable {

@OneToOne
@JoinColumns({
@JoinColumn(name="userfirstname_fk", referencedColumnName="firstName"),
@JoinColumn(name="userlastname_fk", referencedColumnName="lastName")
})
User user;
String customerNumber;
}

@Entity
class User {
@EmbeddedId UserId id;
Integer age;
}

@Embeddable
class UserId implements Serializable {
String firstName;
String lastName;
}

2.2.3.2.2. Multiple @Id properties

Another, arguably more natural, approach is to place @Id on multiple properties of my entity. This
approach is only supported by Hibernate but does not require an extra embeddable component.

@Entity
class Customer implements Serializable {
@Id @OneToOne
@JoinColumns({
@JoinColumn(name="userfirstname_fk", referencedColumnName="firstName"),
@JoinColumn(name="userlastname_fk", referencedColumnName="lastName")
})
User user;

@Id String customerNumber;

boolean preferredCustomer;
}

@Entity
class User {
@EmbeddedId UserId id;
Integer age;
}

@Embeddable
class UserId implements Serializable {
String firstName;
String lastName;
}

In this case Customer being it's own identifier representation, it must implement Serializable.

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

2.2.3.2.3. @IdClass

@IdClass on an entity points to the class (component) representing the identifier of the class. The
properties marked @Id on the entity must have their corresponding property on the @IdClass. The
return type of search twin property must be either identical for basic properties or must correspond
to the identifier class of the associated entity for an association.

Warning

This approach is inherited from the EJB 2 days and we recommend against its use.
But, after all it's your application and Hibernate supports it.

@Entity
class Customer {
@Id @OneToOne
@JoinColumns({
@JoinColumn(name="userfirstname_fk", referencedColumnName="firstName"),
@JoinColumn(name="userlastname_fk", referencedColumnName="lastName")
})
User user;

@Id String customerNumber;

boolean preferredCustomer;
}

class CustomerId implements Serializable {

UserId user;
String customerNumber;
}

@Entity
class User {
@EmbeddedId UserId id;
Integer age;
}

@Embeddable
class UserId implements Serializable {
String firstName;
String lastName;
}

Customer and CustomerId do have the same properties customerNumber as well as user.

While not JPA standard, Hibernate let's you declare the vanilla associated property in the
@IdClass.

@Entity
class Customer {

22
 Mapping identifier properties

@Id @OneToOne
@JoinColumns({
@JoinColumn(name="userfirstname_fk", referencedColumnName="firstName"),
@JoinColumn(name="userlastname_fk", referencedColumnName="lastName")
})
User user;

@Id String customerNumber;

boolean preferredCustomer;
}

class CustomerId implements Serializable {

@OneToOne User user;
String customerNumber;
}

@Entity
class User {
@EmbeddedId UserId id;
Integer age;
}

@Embeddable
class UserId implements Serializable {
String firstName;
String lastName;
}

2.2.3.2.4. Partial identifier generation

Hibernate supports the automatic generation of some of the identifier properties. Simply use the
@GeneratedValue annotation on one or several id properties.

Warning
The Hibernate team has always felt such a construct as fundamentally wrong. Try
hard to fix your data model before using this feature.

@Entity
public class CustomerInventory implements Serializable {
@Id
@TableGenerator(name = "inventory",
table = "U_SEQUENCES",
pkColumnName = "S_ID",
valueColumnName = "S_NEXTNUM",
pkColumnValue = "inventory",
allocationSize = 1000)
@GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.TABLE, generator = "inventory")
Integer id;

@Id @ManyToOne(cascade = CascadeType.MERGE)

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

Customer customer;
}

@Entity
public class Customer implements Serializable {
@Id
private int id;
}

You can also generate properties inside an @EmbeddedId class.

2.2.4. Mapping inheritance

EJB3 supports the three types of inheritance:

• Table per Class Strategy: the <union-class> element in Hibernate

• Single Table per Class Hierarchy Strategy: the <subclass> element in Hibernate

• Joined Subclass Strategy: the <joined-subclass> element in Hibernate

The chosen strategy is declared at the class level of the top level entity in the hierarchy using the
@Inheritance annotation.

Note
Annotating interfaces is currently not supported.

2.2.4.1. Table per class

This strategy has many drawbacks (esp. with polymorphic queries and associations) explained
in the JPA spec, the Hibernate reference documentation, Hibernate in Action, and many other
places. Hibernate work around most of them implementing this strategy using SQL UNION queries.
It is commonly used for the top level of an inheritance hierarchy:

@Entity
@Inheritance(strategy = InheritanceType.TABLE_PER_CLASS)
public class Flight implements Serializable { ... }

This strategy supports one-to-many associations provided that they are bidirectional. This strategy
does not support the IDENTITY generator strategy: the id has to be shared across several tables.
Consequently, when using this strategy, you should not use AUTO nor IDENTITY.

2.2.4.2. Single table per class hierarchy

All properties of all super- and subclasses are mapped into the same table, instances are
distinguished by a special discriminator column:

24
 Mapping inheritance

@Entity
@Inheritance(strategy=InheritanceType.SINGLE_TABLE)
@DiscriminatorColumn(
name="planetype",
discriminatorType=DiscriminatorType.STRING
)
@DiscriminatorValue("Plane")
public class Plane { ... }

@Entity
@DiscriminatorValue("A320")
public class A320 extends Plane { ... }

Plane is the superclass, it defines the inheritance strategy InheritanceType.SINGLE_TABLE.

It also defines the discriminator column through the @DiscriminatorColumn annotation, a
discriminator column can also define the discriminator type. Finally, the @DiscriminatorValue
annotation defines the value used to differentiate a class in the hierarchy. All of these
attributes have sensible default values. The default name of the discriminator column is
DTYPE. The default discriminator value is the entity name (as defined in @Entity.name) for
DiscriminatorType.STRING. A320 is a subclass; you only have to define discriminator value if you
don't want to use the default value. The strategy and the discriminator type are implicit.

@Inheritance and @DiscriminatorColumn should only be defined at the top of the entity
hierarchy.

2.2.4.3. Joined subclasses

The @PrimaryKeyJoinColumn and @PrimaryKeyJoinColumns annotations define the primary

key(s) of the joined subclass table:

@Entity
@Inheritance(strategy=InheritanceType.JOINED)
public class Boat implements Serializable { ... }

@Entity
public class Ferry extends Boat { ... }

@Entity
@PrimaryKeyJoinColumn(name="BOAT_ID")
public class AmericaCupClass extends Boat { ... }

All of the above entities use the JOINED strategy, the Ferry table is joined with the Boat table
using the same primary key names. The AmericaCupClass table is joined with Boat using the join
condition Boat.id = AmericaCupClass.BOAT_ID.

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

2.2.4.4. Inherit properties from superclasses

This is sometimes useful to share common properties through a technical or a business superclass
without including it as a regular mapped entity (ie no specific table for this entity). For that purpose
you can map them as @MappedSuperclass.

@MappedSuperclass
public class BaseEntity {
@Basic
@Temporal(TemporalType.TIMESTAMP)
public Date getLastUpdate() { ... }
public String getLastUpdater() { ... }
...
}

@Entity class Order extends BaseEntity {

@Id public Integer getId() { ... }
...
}

In database, this hierarchy will be represented as an Order table having the id, lastUpdate and
lastUpdater columns. The embedded superclass property mappings are copied into their entity
subclasses. Remember that the embeddable superclass is not the root of the hierarchy though.

Note

Properties from superclasses not mapped as @MappedSuperclass are ignored.

Note

The default access type (field or methods) is used, unless you use the @Access
annotation.

Note

The same notion can be applied to @Embeddable objects to persist properties from
their superclasses. You also need to use @MappedSuperclass to do that (this
should not be considered as a standard EJB3 feature though)

26
 Mapping inheritance

Note

It is allowed to mark a class as @MappedSuperclass in the middle of the mapped

inheritance hierarchy.

Note

Any class in the hierarchy non annotated with @MappedSuperclass nor @Entity
will be ignored.

You can override columns defined in entity superclasses at the root entity level using the
@AttributeOverride annotation.

@MappedSuperclass
public class FlyingObject implements Serializable {

public int getAltitude() {

return altitude;
}

@Transient
public int getMetricAltitude() {
return metricAltitude;
}

@ManyToOne
public PropulsionType getPropulsion() {
return metricAltitude;
}
...
}

@Entity
@AttributeOverride( name="altitude", column = @Column(name="fld_altitude") )
@AssociationOverride(
name="propulsion",
joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name="fld_propulsion_fk")
)
public class Plane extends FlyingObject {
...
}

The altitude property will be persisted in an fld_altitude column of table Plane and the
propulsion association will be materialized in a fld_propulsion_fk foreign key column.

You can define @AttributeOverride(s) and @AssociationOverride(s) on @Entity classes,

@MappedSuperclass classes and properties pointing to an @Embeddable object.

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

2.2.5. Mapping entity associations/relationships

2.2.5.1. One-to-one

You can associate entities through a one-to-one relationship using @OneToOne. There are three
cases for one-to-one associations: either the associated entities share the same primary keys
values, a foreign key is held by one of the entities (note that this FK column in the database should
be constrained unique to simulate one-to-one multiplicity), or a association table is used to store
the link between the 2 entities (a unique constraint has to be defined on each fk to ensure the
one to one multiplicity).

First, we map a real one-to-one association using shared primary keys:

@Entity
public class Body {
@Id
public Long getId() { return id; }

@OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
@PrimaryKeyJoinColumn
public Heart getHeart() {
return heart;
}
...
}

@Entity
public class Heart {
@Id
public Long getId() { ...}
}

The @PrimaryKeyJoinColumn annotation does say that the primary key of the entity is used as
the foreign key value to the associated entity.

In the following example, the associated entities are linked through an explicit foreign key column:

@Entity
public class Customer implements Serializable {
@OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
@JoinColumn(name="passport_fk")
public Passport getPassport() {
...
}

@Entity
public class Passport implements Serializable {
@OneToOne(mappedBy = "passport")
public Customer getOwner() {

28
 Mapping entity associations/relationships

...
}

A Customer is linked to a Passport, with a foreign key column named passport_fk in the
Customer table. The join column is declared with the @JoinColumn annotation which looks
like the @Column annotation. It has one more parameters named referencedColumnName. This
parameter declares the column in the targeted entity that will be used to the join. Note that
when using referencedColumnName to a non primary key column, the associated class has to be
Serializable. Also note that the referencedColumnName to a non primary key column has to
be mapped to a property having a single column (other cases might not work).

The association may be bidirectional. In a bidirectional relationship, one of the sides (and only one)
has to be the owner: the owner is responsible for the association column(s) update. To declare
a side as not responsible for the relationship, the attribute mappedBy is used. mappedBy refers to
the property name of the association on the owner side. In our case, this is passport. As you
can see, you don't have to (must not) declare the join column since it has already been declared
on the owners side.

If no @JoinColumn is declared on the owner side, the defaults apply. A join column(s) will be
created in the owner table and its name will be the concatenation of the name of the relationship in
the owner side, _ (underscore), and the name of the primary key column(s) in the owned side. In
this example passport_id because the property name is passport and the column id of Passport
is id.

The third possibility (using an association table) is quite exotic.

@Entity
public class Customer implements Serializable {
@OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
@JoinTable(name = "CustomerPassports",
joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name="customer_fk"),
inverseJoinColumns = @JoinColumn(name="passport_fk")
)
public Passport getPassport() {
...
}

@Entity
public class Passport implements Serializable {
@OneToOne(mappedBy = "passport")
public Customer getOwner() {
...
}

A Customer is linked to a Passport through a association table named CustomerPassports ; this

association table has a foreign key column named passport_fk pointing to the Passport table
(materialized by the inverseJoinColumn, and a foreign key column named customer_fk pointing
to the Customer table materialized by the joinColumns attribute.

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

You must declare the join table name and the join columns explicitly in such a mapping.

2.2.5.2. Many-to-one
Many-to-one associations are declared at the property level with the annotation @ManyToOne:

@Entity()
public class Flight implements Serializable {
@ManyToOne( cascade = {CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.MERGE} )
@JoinColumn(name="COMP_ID")
public Company getCompany() {
return company;
}
...
}

The @JoinColumn attribute is optional, the default value(s) is like in one to one, the concatenation
of the name of the relationship in the owner side, _ (underscore), and the name of the primary key
column in the owned side. In this example company_id because the property name is company
and the column id of Company is id.

@ManyToOne has a parameter named targetEntity which describes the target entity name. You
usually don't need this parameter since the default value (the type of the property that stores the
association) is good in almost all cases. However this is useful when you want to use interfaces
as the return type instead of the regular entity.

@Entity
public class Flight implements Serializable {
@ManyToOne( cascade = {CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.MERGE}, targetEntity=CompanyImpl.class )
@JoinColumn(name="COMP_ID")
public Company getCompany() {
return company;
}
...
}

public interface Company {

...
}

You can also map a many-to-one association through an association table. This association table
described by the @JoinTable annotation will contains a foreign key referencing back the entity
table (through @JoinTable.joinColumns) and a a foreign key referencing the target entity table
(through @JoinTable.inverseJoinColumns).

@Entity
public class Flight implements Serializable {
@ManyToOne( cascade = {CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.MERGE} )
@JoinTable(name="Flight_Company",

30
 Mapping entity associations/relationships

joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name="FLIGHT_ID"),
inverseJoinColumns = @JoinColumn(name="COMP_ID")
)
public Company getCompany() {
return company;
}
...
}

2.2.5.3. Collections

You can map Collection, List, Map and Set pointing to associated entities as one-to-many or
many-to-many associations using the @OneToMany or @ManyToMany annotation respectively. If the
collection is of a basic type or of an embeddable type, use @ElementCollection. We will describe
that in more detail in the following subsections.

2.2.5.3.1. One-to-many

One-to-many associations are declared at the property level with the annotation @OneToMany. One
to many associations may be bidirectional.

2.2.5.3.1.1. Bidirectional

Since many to one are (almost) always the owner side of a bidirectional relationship in the JPA
spec, the one to many association is annotated by @OneToMany(mappedBy=...)

@Entity
public class Troop {
@OneToMany(mappedBy="troop")
public Set<Soldier> getSoldiers() {
...
}

@Entity
public class Soldier {
@ManyToOne
@JoinColumn(name="troop_fk")
public Troop getTroop() {
...
}

Troop has a bidirectional one to many relationship with Soldier through the troop property. You
don't have to (must not) define any physical mapping in the mappedBy side.

To map a bidirectional one to many, with the one-to-many side as the owning side, you have to
remove the mappedBy element and set the many to one @JoinColumn as insertable and updatable
to false. This solution is not optimized and will produce some additional UPDATE statements.

@Entity

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

public class Troop {

@OneToMany
@JoinColumn(name="troop_fk") //we need to duplicate the physical information
public Set<Soldier> getSoldiers() {
...
}

@Entity
public class Soldier {
@ManyToOne
@JoinColumn(name="troop_fk", insertable=false, updatable=false)
public Troop getTroop() {
...
}

2.2.5.3.1.2. Unidirectional

A unidirectional one to many using a foreign key column in the owned entity is not that common
and not really recommended. We strongly advise you to use a join table for this kind of association
(as explained in the next section). This kind of association is described through a @JoinColumn

@Entity
public class Customer implements Serializable {
@OneToMany(cascade=CascadeType.ALL, fetch=FetchType.EAGER)
@JoinColumn(name="CUST_ID")
public Set<Ticket> getTickets() {
...
}

@Entity
public class Ticket implements Serializable {
... //no bidir
}

Customer describes a unidirectional relationship with Ticket using the join column CUST_ID.

2.2.5.3.1.3. Unidirectional with join table

A unidirectional one to many with join table is much preferred. This association is described
through an @JoinTable.

@Entity
public class Trainer {
@OneToMany
@JoinTable(
name="TrainedMonkeys",
joinColumns = @JoinColumn( name="trainer_id"),
inverseJoinColumns = @JoinColumn( name="monkey_id")
)
public Set<Monkey> getTrainedMonkeys() {
...
}

32
 Mapping entity associations/relationships

@Entity
public class Monkey {
... //no bidir
}

Trainer describes a unidirectional relationship with Monkey using the join table TrainedMonkeys,
with a foreign key trainer_id to Trainer (joinColumns) and a foreign key monkey_id to Monkey
(inversejoinColumns).

2.2.5.3.1.4. Defaults

Without describing any physical mapping, a unidirectional one to many with join table is used.
The table name is the concatenation of the owner table name, _, and the other side table name.
The foreign key name(s) referencing the owner table is the concatenation of the owner table, _,
and the owner primary key column(s) name. The foreign key name(s) referencing the other side
is the concatenation of the owner property name, _, and the other side primary key column(s)
name. A unique constraint is added to the foreign key referencing the other side table to reflect
the one to many.

@Entity
public class Trainer {
@OneToMany
public Set<Tiger> getTrainedTigers() {
...
}

@Entity
public class Tiger {
... //no bidir
}

Trainer describes a unidirectional relationship with Tiger using the join table Trainer_Tiger,
with a foreign key trainer_id to Trainer (table name, _, trainer id) and a foreign key
trainedTigers_id to Monkey (property name, _, Tiger primary column).

2.2.5.3.2. Many-to-many

2.2.5.3.2.1. Definition

A many-to-many association is defined logically using the @ManyToMany annotation. You also have
to describe the association table and the join conditions using the @JoinTable annotation. If the
association is bidirectional, one side has to be the owner and one side has to be the inverse end
(ie. it will be ignored when updating the relationship values in the association table):

@Entity
public class Employer implements Serializable {
@ManyToMany(

33
Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

targetEntity=org.hibernate.test.metadata.manytomany.Employee.class,
cascade={CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.MERGE}
)
@JoinTable(
name="EMPLOYER_EMPLOYEE",
joinColumns=@JoinColumn(name="EMPER_ID"),
inverseJoinColumns=@JoinColumn(name="EMPEE_ID")
)
public Collection getEmployees() {
return employees;
}
...
}

@Entity
public class Employee implements Serializable {
@ManyToMany(
cascade = {CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.MERGE},
mappedBy = "employees",
targetEntity = Employer.class
)
public Collection getEmployers() {
return employers;
}
}

We've already shown the many declarations and the detailed attributes for associations. We'll go
deeper in the @JoinTable description, it defines a name, an array of join columns (an array in
annotation is defined using { A, B, C }), and an array of inverse join columns. The latter ones are
the columns of the association table which refer to the Employee primary key (the "other side").

As seen previously, the other side don't have to (must not) describe the physical mapping: a simple
mappedBy argument containing the owner side property name bind the two.

2.2.5.3.2.2. Default values

As any other annotations, most values are guessed in a many to many relationship. Without
describing any physical mapping in a unidirectional many to many the following rules applied. The
table name is the concatenation of the owner table name, _ and the other side table name. The
foreign key name(s) referencing the owner table is the concatenation of the owner table name, _
and the owner primary key column(s). The foreign key name(s) referencing the other side is the
concatenation of the owner property name, _, and the other side primary key column(s). These
are the same rules used for a unidirectional one to many relationship.

@Entity
public class Store {
@ManyToMany(cascade = CascadeType.PERSIST)
public Set<City> getImplantedIn() {
...

34
 Mapping entity associations/relationships

}
}

@Entity
public class City {
... //no bidirectional relationship
}

A Store_City is used as the join table. The Store_id column is a foreign key to the Store table.
The implantedIn_id column is a foreign key to the City table.

Without describing any physical mapping in a bidirectional many to many the following rules
applied. The table name is the concatenation of the owner table name, _ and the other side table
name. The foreign key name(s) referencing the owner table is the concatenation of the other side
property name, _, and the owner primary key column(s). The foreign key name(s) referencing the
other side is the concatenation of the owner property name, _, and the other side primary key
column(s). These are the same rules used for a unidirectional one to many relationship.

@Entity
public class Store {
@ManyToMany(cascade = {CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.MERGE})
public Set<Customer> getCustomers() {
...
}
}

@Entity
public class Customer {
@ManyToMany(mappedBy="customers")
public Set<Store> getStores() {
...
}
}

A Store_Customer is used as the join table. The stores_id column is a foreign key to the Store
table. The customers_id column is a foreign key to the Customer table.

2.2.5.3.3. Collection of basic types or embeddable objects

In some simple situation, do don't need to associate two entities but simply create a collection of
basic types or embeddable objects. Use the @ElementCollection in this case.

@Entity
public class User {
[...]
public String getLastname() { ...}

@ElementCollection
@CollectionTable(name="Nicknames", joinColumns=@JoinColumn(name="user_id"))
@Column(name="nickname")

35
Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

public Set<String> getNicknames() { ... }

}

The collection table holding the collection data is set using the @CollectionTable annotation. If
omitted the collection table name default to the concatenation of the name of the containing entity
and the name of the collection attribute, separated by an underscore: in our example, it would
be User_nicknames.

The column holding the basic type is set using the @Column annotation. If omitted, the column
name defaults to the property name: in our example, it would be nicknames.

But you are not limited to basic types, the collection type can be any embeddable
object. To override the columns of the embeddable object in the collection table, use the
@AttributeOverride annotation.

@Entity
public class User {
[...]
public String getLastname() { ...}

@ElementCollection
@CollectionTable(name="Addresses", joinColumns=@JoinColumn(name="user_id"))
@AttributeOverrides({
@AttributeOverride(name="street1", column=@Column(name="fld_street"))
})
public Set<Address> getAddresses() { ... }
}

@Embeddable
public class Address {
public String getStreet1() {...}
[...]
}

Such an embeddable object cannot contains a collection itself.

Note

in @AttributeOverride, you must use the value. prefix to override properties

of the embeddable object used in the map value and the key. prefix to override
properties of the embeddable object used in the map key.

@Entity
public class User {
@ElementCollection
@AttributeOverrides({
@AttributeOverride(name="key.street1", column=@Column(name="fld_street")),
@AttributeOverride(name="value.stars", column=@Column(name="fld_note"))
})

36
 Mapping entity associations/relationships

public Map<Address,Rating> getFavHomes() { ... }

Note
We recommend you to
migrate from
@org.hibernate.annotations.CollectionOfElements to the new
@ElementCollection annotation.

2.2.5.3.4. Indexed collections (List, Map)

Lists can be mapped in two different ways:

• as ordered lists, the order is not materialized in the database

• as indexed lists, the order is materialized in the database

To order lists in memory, add @javax.persistence.OrderBy to your property. This annotation

takes into parameter a list of comma separated properties (of the target entity) and order the
collection accordingly (eg firstname asc, age desc), if the string is empty, the collection will
be ordered by the primary key of the target entity.

@Entity
public class Customer {
@Id @GeneratedValue public Integer getId() { return id; }
public void setId(Integer id) { this.id = id; }
private Integer id;

@OneToMany(mappedBy="customer")
@OrderBy("number")
public List<Order> getOrders() { return orders; }
public void setOrders(List<Order> orders) { this.orders = orders; }
private List<Order> orders;
}

@Entity
public class Order {
@Id @GeneratedValue public Integer getId() { return id; }
public void setId(Integer id) { this.id = id; }
private Integer id;

public String getNumber() { return number; }

public void setNumber(String number) { this.number = number; }
private String number;

@ManyToOne
public Customer getCustomer() { return customer; }
public void setCustomer(Customer customer) { this.customer = customer; }
private Customer number;
}

-- Table schema

37
Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

|-------------| |----------|
| Order | | Customer |
|-------------| |----------|
| id | | id |
| number | |----------|
| customer_id |
|-------------|

To store the index value in a dedicated column, use the @javax.persistence.OrderColumn

annotation on your property. This annotations describes the column name and attributes of the
column keeping the index value. This column is hosted on the table containing the association
foreign key. If the column name is not specified, the default is the name of the referencing property,
followed by underscore, followed by ORDER (in the following example, it would be orders_ORDER).

@Entity
public class Customer {
@Id @GeneratedValue public Integer getId() { return id; }
public void setId(Integer id) { this.id = id; }
private Integer id;

@OneToMany(mappedBy="customer")
@OrderColumn(name"orders_index")
public List<Order> getOrders() { return orders; }
public void setOrders(List<Order> orders) { this.orders = orders; }
private List<Order> orders;
}

@Entity
public class Order {
@Id @GeneratedValue public Integer getId() { return id; }
public void setId(Integer id) { this.id = id; }
private Integer id;

public String getNumber() { return number; }

public void setNumber(String number) { this.number = number; }
private String number;

@ManyToOne
public Customer getCustomer() { return customer; }
public void setCustomer(Customer customer) { this.customer = customer; }
private Customer number;
}

-- Table schema
|--------------| |----------|
| Order | | Customer |
|--------------| |----------|
| id | | id |
| number | |----------|
| customer_id |
| orders_index |
|--------------|

38
 Mapping entity associations/relationships

Note

We recommend you to convert @org.hibernate.annotations.IndexColumn

usages to @OrderColumn unless you are making use of the base property. The
base property lets you define the index value of the first element (aka as base
index). The usual value is 0 or 1. The default is 0 like in Java.

Likewise, maps can borrow their keys from one of the associated entity properties or have
dedicated columns to store an explicit key.

To use one of the target entity property as a key of the map, use @MapKey(name="myProperty")
(myProperty is a property name in the target entity). When using @MapKey (without property
name), the target entity primary key is used. The map key uses the same column as the property
pointed out: there is no additional column defined to hold the map key, and it does make sense
since the map key actually represent a target property. Be aware that once loaded, the key is no
longer kept in sync with the property, in other words, if you change the property value, the key will
not change automatically in your Java model.

@Entity
public class Customer {
@Id @GeneratedValue public Integer getId() { return id; }
public void setId(Integer id) { this.id = id; }
private Integer id;

@OneToMany(mappedBy="customer")
@MapKey(name"number")
public Map<String,Order> getOrders() { return orders; }
public void setOrders(Map<String,Order> order) { this.orders = orders; }
private Map<String,Order> orders;
}

@Entity
public class Order {
@Id @GeneratedValue public Integer getId() { return id; }
public void setId(Integer id) { this.id = id; }
private Integer id;

public String getNumber() { return number; }

public void setNumber(String number) { this.number = number; }
private String number;

@ManyToOne
public Customer getCustomer() { return customer; }
public void setCustomer(Customer customer) { this.customer = customer; }
private Customer number;
}

-- Table schema
|-------------| |----------|
| Order | | Customer |
|-------------| |----------|

39
Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

| id | | id |
| number | |----------|
| customer_id |
|-------------|

Otherwise, the map key is mapped to a dedicated column or columns. To customize things, use
one of the following annotations:

• @MapKeyColumn if the map key is a basic type, if you don't specify the column name, the name
of the property followed by underscore followed by KEY is used (for example orders_KEY).

• @MapKeyEnumerated / @MapKeyTemporal if the map key type is respectively an enum or a Date.

• @MapKeyJoinColumn/@MapKeyJoinColumns if the map key type is another entity.

• @AttributeOverride/@AttributeOverrides when the map key is a embeddable object. Use

key. as a prefix for your embeddable object property names.

You can also use @MapKeyClass to define the type of the key if you don't use generics (at this
stage, you should wonder why at this day and age you don't use generics).

@Entity
public class Customer {
@Id @GeneratedValue public Integer getId() { return id; }
public void setId(Integer id) { this.id = id; }
private Integer id;

@OneToMany @JoinTable(name="Cust_Order")
@MapKeyColumn(name"orders_number")
public Map<String,Order> getOrders() { return orders; }
public void setOrders(Map<String,Order> orders) { this.orders = orders; }
private Map<String,Order> orders;
}

@Entity
public class Order {
@Id @GeneratedValue public Integer getId() { return id; }
public void setId(Integer id) { this.id = id; }
private Integer id;

public String getNumber() { return number; }

public void setNumber(String number) { this.number = number; }
private String number;

@ManyToOne
public Customer getCustomer() { return customer; }
public void setCustomer(Customer customer) { this.customer = customer; }
private Customer number;
}

-- Table schema
|-------------| |----------| |---------------|
| Order | | Customer | | Cust_Order |

40
 Mapping entity associations/relationships

|-------------| |----------| |---------------|

| id | | id | | customer_id |
| number | |----------| | order_id |
| customer_id | | orders_number |
|-------------| |---------------|

Note

We recommend you to migrate from @org.hibernate.annotations.MapKey /

@org.hibernate.annotation.MapKeyManyToMany to the new standard approach
described above.

Let's now explore the various collection semantics based on the mapping you are choosing.

Table 2.1. Collections semantics

Semantic java representation annotations

Bag semantic java.util.List, @ElementCollection or
java.util.Collection @OneToMany or
@ManyToMany
Bag semantic with primary key java.util.List, (@ElementCollection or
(without the limitations of Bag java.util.Collection @OneToMany or
semantic) @ManyToMany) and
@CollectionId
List semantic java.util.List (@ElementCollection or
@OneToMany or
@ManyToMany) and
(@OrderColumn or
@org.hibernate.annotations.IndexColumn)
Set semantic java.util.Set @ElementCollection or
@OneToMany or
@ManyToMany
Map semantic java.util.Map (@ElementCollection or
@OneToMany or
@ManyToMany) and
((nothing or
@MapKeyJoinColumn/
@MapKeyColumn for true
map support) OR
@javax.persistence.MapKey)

Specifically, java.util.List collections without @OrderColumn or @IndexColumn are going to be

considered as bags.

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

More support for collections are available via Hibernate specific extensions (see Section 2.4,
“Hibernate Annotation Extensions”).

2.2.5.4. Transitive persistence with cascading

You probably have noticed the cascade attribute taking an array of CascadeType as a value. The
cascade concept in JPA is very is similar to the transitive persistence and cascading of operations
in Hibernate, but with slightly different semantics and cascading types:

• CascadeType.PERSIST: cascades the persist (create) operation to associated entities persist()

is called or if the entity is managed

• CascadeType.MERGE: cascades the merge operation to associated entities if merge() is called

or if the entity is managed

• CascadeType.REMOVE: cascades the remove operation to associated entities if delete() is called

• CascadeType.REFRESH: cascades the refresh operation to associated entities if refresh() is

called

• CascadeType.DETACH: cascades the detach operation to associated entities if detach() is called

• CascadeType.ALL: all of the above

Note

CascadeType.ALL also covers Hibernate specific operations like save-update, lock

etc... Check Section 2.4.7, “Cascade” for more information

Please refer to the chapter 6.3 of the JPA specification for more information on cascading and
create/merge semantics.

You can also enable the orphan removal semantic. If an entity is removed from a @OneToMany
collection or an associated entity is dereferenced from a @OneToOne association, this associated
entity can be marked for deletion if orphanRemoval is set to true. In a way, it means that the
associated entity's lifecycle is bound to the owning entity just like an embeddable object is.

@Entity class Customer {

@OneToMany(orphanRemoval=true) public Set<Order> getOrders() { return orders; }
public void setOrders(Set<Order> orders) { this.orders = orders; }
private Set<Order> orders;

[...]
}

@Entity class Order { ... }

42
 Mapping composite primary keys and foreign keys to composite primary keys

Customer customer = em.find(Customer.class, 1l);

Order order = em.find(Order.class, 1l);
customer.getOrders().remove(order); //order will be deleted by cascade

2.2.5.5. Association fetching

You have the ability to either eagerly or lazily fetch associated entities. The fetch parameter
can be set to FetchType.LAZY or FetchType.EAGER. EAGER will try to use an outer join select to
retrieve the associated object, while LAZY will only trigger a select when the associated object is
accessed for the first time. @OneToMany and @ManyToMany associations are defaulted to LAZY and
@OneToOne and @ManyToOne are defaulted to EAGER. For more information about static fetching,
check Section 2.4.5.1, “Lazy options and fetching modes”.

The recommanded approach is to use LAZY on all static fetching definitions and override this
choice dynamically through JP-QL. JP-QL has a fetch keyword that allows you to override
laziness when doing a particular query. This is very useful to improve performance and is decided
on a use case to use case basis.

2.2.6. Mapping composite primary keys and foreign keys to

composite primary keys

Composite primary keys use a embedded class as the primary key representation, so you'd use
the @Id and @Embeddable annotations. Alternatively, you can use the @EmbeddedId annotation.
Note that the dependent class has to be serializable and implements equals()/hashCode(). You
can also use @IdClass. These are more detailed in Section 2.2.3, “Mapping identifier properties”.

@Entity
public class RegionalArticle implements Serializable {

@Id
public RegionalArticlePk getPk() { ... }
}

@Embeddable
public class RegionalArticlePk implements Serializable { ... }

or alternatively

@Entity
public class RegionalArticle implements Serializable {

@EmbeddedId
public RegionalArticlePk getPk() { ... }
}

public class RegionalArticlePk implements Serializable { ... }

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

@Embeddable inherit the access type of its owning entity unless @Access is used. Composite
foreign keys (if not using the default sensitive values) are defined on associations using the
@JoinColumns element, which is basically an array of @JoinColumn. It is considered a good
practice to express referencedColumnNames explicitly. Otherwise, Hibernate will suppose that
you use the same order of columns as in the primary key declaration.

@Entity
public class Parent implements Serializable {
@Id
public ParentPk id;
public int age;

@OneToMany(cascade=CascadeType.ALL)
@JoinColumns ({
@JoinColumn(name="parentCivility", referencedColumnName = "isMale"),
@JoinColumn(name="parentLastName", referencedColumnName = "lastName"),
@JoinColumn(name="parentFirstName", referencedColumnName = "firstName")
})
public Set<Child> children; //unidirectional
...
}

@Entity
public class Child implements Serializable {
@Id @GeneratedValue
public Integer id;

@ManyToOne
@JoinColumns ({
@JoinColumn(name="parentCivility", referencedColumnName = "isMale"),
@JoinColumn(name="parentLastName", referencedColumnName = "lastName"),
@JoinColumn(name="parentFirstName", referencedColumnName = "firstName")
})
public Parent parent; //unidirectional
}

@Embeddable
public class ParentPk implements Serializable {
String firstName;
String lastName;
...
}

Note the explicit usage of the referencedColumnName.

44
 Mapping secondary tables

2.2.7. Mapping secondary tables

You can map a single entity to several tables using the @SecondaryTable or @SecondaryTables
class level annotations. To express that a column is in a particular table, use the table parameter
of @Column or @JoinColumn.

@Entity
@Table(name="MainCat")
@SecondaryTables({
@SecondaryTable(name="Cat1", pkJoinColumns={
@PrimaryKeyJoinColumn(name="cat_id", referencedColumnName="id")
),
@SecondaryTable(name="Cat2", uniqueConstraints={@UniqueConstraint(columnNames={"storyPart2"})})
})
public class Cat implements Serializable {

private Integer id;

private String name;
private String storyPart1;
private String storyPart2;

@Id @GeneratedValue
public Integer getId() {
return id;
}

public String getName() {

return name;
}

@Column(table="Cat1")
public String getStoryPart1() {
return storyPart1;
}

@Column(table="Cat2")
public String getStoryPart2() {
return storyPart2;
}
}

In this example, name will be in MainCat. storyPart1 will be in Cat1 and storyPart2 will be in
Cat2. Cat1 will be joined to MainCat using the cat_id as a foreign key, and Cat2 using id (ie
the same column name, the MainCat id column has). Plus a unique constraint on storyPart2
has been set.

2.2.8. Caching entities

Hibernate offers naturally a first level cache for entities called a persistence context via the notion
of Session. This cache is contextual to the use case at hand. Some entities however are shared
by many different use cases and are barely changed. You can cache these in what is called the
second level cache.

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

By default, entities are not part of the second level cache. While we do not recommend that, you
can override this by setting the shared-cache-mode element in your persistence.xml file or by
using the javax.persistence.sharedCache.mode property. The following values are possible:

• ENABLE_SELECTIVE (Default and recommended value): entities are not cached unless explicitly
marked as cacheable.

• DISABLE_SELECTIVE: entities are cached unless explicitly marked as not cacheable.

• ALL: all entities are always cached even if marked as non cacheable.

• NONE: no entity are cached even if marked as cacheable. This option can make sense to disable
second-level cache altogether.

The cache concurrency strategy used by

default can be set with the
hibernate.cache.default_cache_concurrency_strategy property:

• read-only

• read-write

• nonstrict-read-write

• transactional

Note
It is recommended to define the cache concurrency strategy per entity rather than
using a global one. Use the @org.hibernate.annotations.Cache annotation for
that.

@Entity @Cacheable
@Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE)
public class Forest { ... }

Hibernate also let's you cache the content of a collection or the identifiers if the collection contains
other entities. Use the @Cache annotation on the collection property.

@OneToMany(cascade=CascadeType.ALL, fetch=FetchType.EAGER)
@JoinColumn(name="CUST_ID")
@Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE)
public SortedSet<Ticket> getTickets() {
return tickets;
}

@org.hibernate.annotations.Cache defines the caching strategy and region of a given second

level cache.

46
 Mapping Queries

@Cache(

CacheConcurrencyStrategy usage();

String region() default "";

String include() default "all";

)

usage: the given cache concurrency strategy (NONE, READ_ONLY,

NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE, READ_WRITE, TRANSACTIONAL)
region (optional): the cache region (default to the fqcn of the class or the fq role name of
the collection)
include (optional): all to include all properties, non-lazy to only include non lazy properties
(default all).

2.3. Mapping Queries

While you can write queries in your code, it is considered a good practice to externalize them:

• it make developer/DBA communications easier

• named queries are pre-compiled by Hibernate at startup time

Unfortunately, you lose the type-safety of queries written using the Criteria API.

2.3.1. Mapping JP-QL/HQL queries

You can map JP-QL/HQL queries using annotations. @NamedQuery and @NamedQueries can be
defined at the class level or in a JPA XML deployment descriptor. However their definitions are
global to the session factory/entity manager factory scope. A named query is defined by its name
and the actual query string.

<entity-mappings>
<named-query name="plane.getAll">
<query>select p from Plane p</query>
</named-query>
...
</entity-mappings>
...

@Entity
@NamedQuery(name="night.moreRecentThan", query="select n from Night n where n.date >= :date")
public class Night {
...
}

public class MyDao {

doStuff() {
Query q = s.getNamedQuery("night.moreRecentThan");
q.setDate( "date", aMonthAgo );
List results = q.list();

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

...
}
...
}

You can also provide some hints to a query through an array of QueryHint through a hints
attribute.

The available Hibernate hints are

Table 2.2. Query hints

hint description
org.hibernate.cacheable Whether the query should interact with the
second level cache (defualt to false)
org.hibernate.cacheRegion Cache region name (default used otherwise)
org.hibernate.timeout Query timeout
org.hibernate.fetchSize resultset fetch size
org.hibernate.flushMode Flush mode used for this query
org.hibernate.cacheMode Cache mode used for this query
org.hibernate.readOnly Entities loaded by this query should be in read
only mode or not (default to false)
org.hibernate.comment Query comment added to the generated SQL

You can also define the lock mode by which the returned entities should be locked using the
lockMode property. This is equivalent to the optional lock mode of the entitymanager lookup
operations.

2.3.2. Mapping native queries

You can also map a native query (ie a plain SQL query). To achieve that, you need to describe the
SQL resultset structure using @SqlResultSetMapping (or @SqlResultSetMappings if you plan to
define several resulset mappings). Like @NamedQuery, a @SqlResultSetMapping can be defined
at class level or in a JPA XML file. However its scope is global to the application.

As we will see, a resultSetMapping parameter is defined in @NamedNativeQuery, it represents

the name of a defined @SqlResultSetMapping. The resultset mapping declares the entities
retrieved by this native query. Each field of the entity is bound to an SQL alias (or column name).
All fields of the entity including the ones of subclasses and the foreign key columns of related
entities have to be present in the SQL query. Field definitions are optional provided that they map
to the same column name as the one declared on the class property.

@NamedNativeQuery(name="night&area", query="select night.id nid, night.night_duration, "

+ " night.night_date, area.id aid, night.area_id, area.name "
+ "from Night night, Area area where night.area_id = area.id",

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 Mapping native queries

resultSetMapping="joinMapping")
@SqlResultSetMapping(name="joinMapping", entities={
@EntityResult(entityClass=Night.class, fields = {
@FieldResult(name="id", column="nid"),
@FieldResult(name="duration", column="night_duration"),
@FieldResult(name="date", column="night_date"),
@FieldResult(name="area", column="area_id"),
discriminatorColumn="disc"
}),
@EntityResult(entityClass=org.hibernate.test.annotations.query.Area.class, fields = {
@FieldResult(name="id", column="aid"),
@FieldResult(name="name", column="name")
})
}
)

In the above example, the night&area named query use the joinMapping result set mapping.
This mapping returns 2 entities, Night and Area, each property is declared and associated to
a column name, actually the column name retrieved by the query. Let's now see an implicit
declaration of the property / column.

@Entity
@SqlResultSetMapping(name="implicit",
entities=@EntityResult(entityClass=SpaceShip.class))
@NamedNativeQuery(name="implicitSample",
query="select * from SpaceShip",
resultSetMapping="implicit")
public class SpaceShip {
private String name;
private String model;
private double speed;

@Id
public String getName() {
return name;
}

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

@Column(name="model_txt")
public String getModel() {
return model;
}

public void setModel(String model) {

this.model = model;
}

public double getSpeed() {

return speed;
}

public void setSpeed(double speed) {

49
Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

this.speed = speed;
}
}

In this example, we only describe the entity member of the result set mapping. The property /
column mappings is done using the entity mapping values. In this case the model property is
bound to the model_txt column. If the association to a related entity involve a composite primary
key, a @FieldResult element should be used for each foreign key column. The @FieldResult
name is composed of the property name for the relationship, followed by a dot ("."), followed by
the name or the field or property of the primary key.

@Entity
@SqlResultSetMapping(name="compositekey",
entities=@EntityResult(entityClass=SpaceShip.class,
fields = {
@FieldResult(name="name", column = "name"),
@FieldResult(name="model", column = "model"),
@FieldResult(name="speed", column = "speed"),
@FieldResult(name="captain.firstname", column = "firstn"),
@FieldResult(name="captain.lastname", column = "lastn"),
@FieldResult(name="dimensions.length", column = "length"),
@FieldResult(name="dimensions.width", column = "width")
}),
columns = { @ColumnResult(name = "surface"),
@ColumnResult(name = "volume") } )

@NamedNativeQuery(name="compositekey",
query="select name, model, speed, lname as lastn, fname as firstn, length, width, length
* width as surface from SpaceShip",
resultSetMapping="compositekey")
} )
public class SpaceShip {
private String name;
private String model;
private double speed;
private Captain captain;
private Dimensions dimensions;

@Id
public String getName() {
return name;
}

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

@ManyToOne(fetch= FetchType.LAZY)
@JoinColumns( {
@JoinColumn(name="fname", referencedColumnName = "firstname"),
@JoinColumn(name="lname", referencedColumnName = "lastname")
} )
public Captain getCaptain() {
return captain;
}

50
 Mapping native queries

public void setCaptain(Captain captain) {

this.captain = captain;
}

public String getModel() {

return model;
}

public void setModel(String model) {

this.model = model;
}

public double getSpeed() {

return speed;
}

public void setSpeed(double speed) {

this.speed = speed;
}

public Dimensions getDimensions() {

return dimensions;
}

public void setDimensions(Dimensions dimensions) {

this.dimensions = dimensions;
}
}

@Entity
@IdClass(Identity.class)
public class Captain implements Serializable {
private String firstname;
private String lastname;

@Id
public String getFirstname() {
return firstname;
}

public void setFirstname(String firstname) {

this.firstname = firstname;
}

@Id
public String getLastname() {
return lastname;
}

public void setLastname(String lastname) {

this.lastname = lastname;
}
}

If you retrieve a single entity and if you use the default mapping, you can use the resultClass
attribute instead of resultSetMapping:

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

@NamedNativeQuery(name="implicitSample", query="select * from SpaceShip",

resultClass=SpaceShip.class)
public class SpaceShip {

In some of your native queries, you'll have to return scalar values, for example when building
report queries. You can map them in the @SqlResultsetMapping through @ColumnResult. You
actually can even mix, entities and scalar returns in the same native query (this is probably not
that common though).

@SqlResultSetMapping(name="scalar", columns=@ColumnResult(name="dimension"))
@NamedNativeQuery(name="scalar", query="select length*width as dimension from
SpaceShip", resultSetMapping="scalar")

An other query hint specific to native queries has been introduced: org.hibernate.callable
which can be true or false depending on whether the query is a stored procedure or not.

2.4. Hibernate Annotation Extensions

Hibernate 3.1 offers a variety of additional annotations that you can mix/match with your EJB 3
entities. They have been designed as a natural extension of EJB3 annotations.

To empower the EJB3 capabilities, hibernate provides specific annotations that match hibernate
features. The org.hibernate.annotations package contains all these annotations extensions.

2.4.1. Entity
You can fine tune some of the actions done by Hibernate on entities beyond what the EJB3 spec
offers.

@org.hibernate.annotations.Entity adds additional metadata that may be needed beyond

what is defined in the standard @Entity

• mutable: whether this entity is mutable or not

• dynamicInsert: allow dynamic SQL for inserts

• dynamicUpdate: allow dynamic SQL for updates

• selectBeforeUpdate: Specifies that Hibernate should never perform an SQL UPDATE unless it
is certain that an object is actually modified.

• polymorphism: whether the entity polymorphism is of PolymorphismType.IMPLICIT (default) or

PolymorphismType.EXPLICIT

• optimisticLock: optimistic locking strategy (OptimisticLockType.VERSION,

OptimisticLockType.NONE, OptimisticLockType.DIRTY or OptimisticLockType.ALL)

52
 Entity

Note

@javax.persistence.Entity is still mandatory, @org.hibernate.annotations.Entity is

not a replacement.

Here are some additional Hibernate annotation extensions

@org.hibernate.annotations.BatchSize allows you to define the batch size when fetching

instances of this entity ( eg. @BatchSize(size=4) ). When loading a given entity, Hibernate will
then load all the uninitialized entities of the same type in the persistence context up to the batch
size.

@org.hibernate.annotations.Proxy defines the laziness attributes of the entity. lazy (default

to true) define whether the class is lazy or not. proxyClassName is the interface used to generate
the proxy (default is the class itself).

@org.hibernate.annotations.Where defines an optional SQL WHERE clause used when

instances of this class is retrieved.

@org.hibernate.annotations.Check defines an optional check constraints defined in the DDL

statetement.

@OnDelete(action=OnDeleteAction.CASCADE) on joined subclasses: use a SQL cascade

delete on deletion instead of the regular Hibernate mechanism.

@Table(appliesTo="tableName", indexes = { @Index(name="index1",

columnNames={"column1", "column2"} ) } ) creates the defined indexes on the columns of
table tableName. This can be applied on the primary table or any secondary table. The @Tables
annotation allows your to apply indexes on different tables. This annotation is expected where
@javax.persistence.Table or @javax.persistence.SecondaryTable(s) occurs.

Note

@org.hibernate.annotations.Table is a complement, not a replacement

to @javax.persistence.Table. Especially, if you want to change the
default name of a table, you must use @javax.persistence.Table, not
@org.hibernate.annotations.Table.

@org.hibernate.annotations.Table can also be used to define the following elements of

secondary tables:

• fetch: If set to JOIN, the default, Hibernate will use an inner join to retrieve a secondary table
defined by a class or its superclasses and an outer join for a secondary table defined by a

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

subclass. If set to select then Hibernate will use a sequential select for a secondary table
defined on a subclass, which will be issued only if a row turns out to represent an instance of
the subclass. Inner joins will still be used to retrieve a secondary defined by the class and its
superclasses.

• inverse: If true, Hibernate will not try to insert or update the properties defined by this join.
Default to false.

• optional: If enabled (the default), Hibernate will insert a row only if the properties defined by
this join are non-null and will always use an outer join to retrieve the properties.

• foreignKey: defines the Foreign Key name of a secondary table pointing back to the primary
table.

@Immutable marks an entity or collection as immutable. An immutable entity may not be updated
by the application. This allows Hibernate to make some minor performance optimizations. Updates
to an immutable entity will be ignored, but no exception is thrown. @Immutable must be used on
root entities only. @Immutable placed on a collection makes the collection immutable, meaning
additions and deletions to and from the collection are not allowed. A HibernateException is
thrown in this case.

@Persister lets you define your own custom persistence strategy. You may, for example, specify
your own subclass of org.hibernate.persister.EntityPersister or you might even provide
a completely new implementation of the interface org.hibernate.persister.ClassPersister
that implements persistence via, for example, stored procedure calls, serialization to flat files or
LDAP.

@Entity
@BatchSize(size=5)
@org.hibernate.annotations.Entity(
selectBeforeUpdate = true,
dynamicInsert = true, dynamicUpdate = true,
optimisticLock = OptimisticLockType.ALL,
polymorphism = PolymorphismType.EXPLICIT)
@Where(clause="1=1")
@org.hibernate.annotations.Table(name="Forest", indexes = { @Index(name="idx", columnNames = { "name", "length" }
@Persister(impl=MyEntityPersister.class)
public class Forest { ... }

@Entity
@Inheritance(
strategy=InheritanceType.JOINED
)
public class Vegetable { ... }

@Entity
@OnDelete(action=OnDeleteAction.CASCADE)
public class Carrot extends Vegetable { ... }

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 Identifier

2.4.2. Identifier

Hibernate Annotations goes beyond the Java Persistence specification when defining identifiers.

2.4.2.1. Generators

@org.hibernate.annotations.GenericGenerator and
@org.hibernate.annotations.GenericGenerators allows you to define an Hibernate
specific id generator.

@Id @GeneratedValue(generator="system-uuid")
@GenericGenerator(name="system-uuid", strategy = "uuid")
public String getId() {

@Id @GeneratedValue(generator="hibseq")
@GenericGenerator(name="hibseq", strategy = "seqhilo",
parameters = {
@Parameter(name="max_lo", value = "5"),
@Parameter(name="sequence", value="heybabyhey")
}
)
public Integer getId() {

strategy is the short name of an Hibernate3 generator strategy or the fully qualified class
name of an IdentifierGenerator implementation. You can add some parameters through the
parameters attribute.

Contrary to their standard counterpart, @GenericGenerator and @GenericGenerators can be

used in package level annotations, making them application level generators (just like if they were
in a JPA XML file).

@GenericGenerators(
{
@GenericGenerator(
name="hibseq",
strategy = "seqhilo",
parameters = {
@Parameter(name="max_lo", value = "5"),
@Parameter(name="sequence", value="heybabyhey")
}
),
@GenericGenerator(...)
}
)
package org.hibernate.test.model

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

2.4.2.2. @NaturalId

While not used as identifier property, some (group of) properties represent natural identifier of
an entity. This is especially true when the schema uses the recommended approach of using
surrogate primary key even if a natural business key exists. Hibernate allows to map such natural
properties and reuse them in a Criteria query. The natural identifier is composed of all the
properties marked @NaturalId.

@Entity
public class Citizen {
@Id
@GeneratedValue
private Integer id;
private String firstname;
private String lastname;

@NaturalId
@ManyToOne
private State state;

@NaturalId
private String ssn;
...
}

//and later on query

List results = s.createCriteria( Citizen.class )
.add( Restrictions.naturalId().set( "ssn", "1234" ).set( "state", ste ) )
.list();

Note that the group of properties representing the natural identifier have to be unique (Hibernate
will generate a unique constraint if the database schema is generated).

2.4.3. Property

2.4.3.1. Formula

Sometimes, you want the Database to do some computation for you rather than in the JVM, you
might also create some kind of virtual column. You can use a SQL fragment (aka formula) instead
of mapping a property into a column. This kind of property is read only (its value is calculated by
your formula fragment).

@Formula("obj_length * obj_height * obj_width")

public long getObjectVolume()

The SQL fragment can be as complex as you want and even include subselects.

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 Property

2.4.3.2. Type

@org.hibernate.annotations.Type overrides the default hibernate type used: this is generally

not necessary since the type is correctly inferred by Hibernate. Please refer to the Hibernate
reference guide for more informations on the Hibernate types.

@org.hibernate.annotations.TypeDef and @org.hibernate.annotations.TypeDefs allows

you to declare type definitions. These annotations can be placed at the class or package level.
Note that these definitions are global for the session factory (even when defined at the class level).
If the type is used on a single entity, you can place the definition on the entity itself. Otherwise,
it is recommended to place the definition at the package level. In the example below, when
Hibernate encounters a property of class PhoneNumer, it delegates the persistence strategy to the
custom mapping type PhoneNumberType. However, properties belonging to other classes, too, can
delegate their persistence strategy to PhoneNumberType, by explicitly using the @Type annotation.

Note

Package level annotations are placed in a file named package-info.java in the

appropriate package. Place your annotations before the package declaration.

@TypeDef(
name = "phoneNumber",
defaultForType = PhoneNumber.class,
typeClass = PhoneNumberType.class
)

@Entity
public class ContactDetails {
[...]
private PhoneNumber localPhoneNumber;
@Type(type="phoneNumber")
private OverseasPhoneNumber overseasPhoneNumber;
[...]
}

The following example shows the usage of the parameters attribute to customize the TypeDef.

//in org/hibernate/test/annotations/entity/package-info.java
@TypeDefs(
{
@TypeDef(
name="caster",
typeClass = CasterStringType.class,
parameters = {
@Parameter(name="cast", value="lower")
}
)
}

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

)
package org.hibernate.test.annotations.entity;

//in org/hibernate/test/annotations/entity/Forest.java
public class Forest {
@Type(type="caster")
public String getSmallText() {
...
}

When using composite user type, you will have to express column definitions. The @Columns has
been introduced for that purpose.

@Type(type="org.hibernate.test.annotations.entity.MonetaryAmountUserType")
@Columns(columns = {
@Column(name="r_amount"),
@Column(name="r_currency")
})
public MonetaryAmount getAmount() {
return amount;
}

public class MonetaryAmount implements Serializable {

private BigDecimal amount;
private Currency currency;
...
}

2.4.3.3. Index

You can define an index on a particular column using the @Index annotation on a one column
property, the columnNames attribute will then be ignored

@Column(secondaryTable="Cat1")
@Index(name="story1index")
public String getStoryPart1() {
return storyPart1;
}

2.4.3.4. @Parent

When inside an embeddable object, you can define one of the properties as a pointer back to
the owner element.

@Entity
public class Person {
@Embeddable public Address address;
...

58
 Property

@Embeddable
public class Address {
@Parent public Person owner;
...
}

person == person.address.owner

2.4.3.5. Generated properties

Some properties are generated at insert or update time by your database. Hibernate can deal with
such properties and triggers a subsequent select to read these properties.

@Entity
public class Antenna {
@Id public Integer id;
@Generated(GenerationTime.ALWAYS)
@Column(insertable = false, updatable = false)
public String longitude;

@Generated(GenerationTime.INSERT) @Column(insertable = false)

public String latitude;
}

Annotate your property as @Generated You have to make sure your insertability or updatability
does not conflict with the generation strategy you have chosen. When GenerationTime.INSERT
is chosen, the property must not contains insertable columns, when GenerationTime.ALWAYS is
chosen, the property must not contains insertable nor updatable columns.

@Version properties cannot be @Generated(INSERT) by design, it has to be either NEVER or

ALWAYS.

2.4.3.6. @Target

Sometimes, the type guessed by reflection is not the one you want Hibernate to use. This is
especially true on components when an interface is used. You can use @Target to by pass
the reflection guessing mechanism (very much like the targetEntity attribute available on
associations.

@Embedded
@Target(OwnerImpl.class)
public Owner getOwner() {
return owner;
}

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

2.4.3.7. Optimistic lock

It is sometimes useful to avoid increasing the version number even if a given property is
dirty (particularly collections). You can do that by annotating the property (or collection) with
@OptimisticLock(excluded=true).

More formally, specifies that updates to this property do not require acquisition of the optimistic
lock.

2.4.4. Inheritance
SINGLE_TABLE is a very powerful strategy but sometimes, and especially for legacy
systems, you cannot add an additional discriminator column. For that purpose Hibernate has
introduced the notion of discriminator formula: @DiscriminatorFormula is a replacement of
@DiscriminatorColumn and use a SQL fragment as a formula for discriminator resolution (no
need to have a dedicated column).

@Entity
@DiscriminatorFormula("case when forest_type is null then 0 else forest_type end")
public class Forest { ... }

By default, when querying the top entities, Hibernate does not put a restriction clause
on the discriminator column. This can be inconvenient if this column contains values not
mapped in your hierarchy (through @DiscriminatorValue). To work around that you can use
@ForceDiscriminator (at the class level, next to @DiscriminatorColumn). Hibernate will then
list the available values when loading the entities.

You can define the foreign key name generated by Hibernate for subclass tables in the JOINED
inheritance strategy.

@Entity
@Inheritance(strategy = InheritanceType.JOINED)
public abstract class File { ... }

@Entity
@ForeignKey(name = "FK_DOCU_FILE")
public class Document extends File {

The foreign key from the Document table to the File table will be named FK_DOCU_FILE.

2.4.5. Single Association related annotations

By default, when Hibernate cannot resolve the association because the expected associated
element is not in database (wrong id on the association column), an exception is raised by
Hibernate. This might be inconvenient for legacy and badly maintained schemas. You can ask
Hibernate to ignore such elements instead of raising an exception using the @NotFound annotation.

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 Single Association related annotations

This annotation can be used on a @OneToOne (with FK), @ManyToOne, @OneToMany or @ManyToMany
association.

@Entity
public class Child {
...
@ManyToOne
@NotFound(action=NotFoundAction.IGNORE)
public Parent getParent() { ... }
...
}

Sometimes you want to delegate to your database the deletion of cascade when a given entity
is deleted.

@Entity
public class Child {
...
@ManyToOne
@OnDelete(action=OnDeleteAction.CASCADE)
public Parent getParent() { ... }
...
}

In this case Hibernate generates a cascade delete constraint at the database level.

Foreign key constraints, while generated by Hibernate, have a fairly unreadable name. You can
override the constraint name by use @ForeignKey.

@Entity
public class Child {
...
@ManyToOne
@ForeignKey(name="FK_PARENT")
public Parent getParent() { ... }
...
}

alter table Child add constraint FK_PARENT foreign key (parent_id) references Parent

2.4.5.1. Lazy options and fetching modes

JPA comes with the fetch option to define lazy loading and fetching modes, however Hibernate
has a much more option set in this area. To fine tune the lazy loading and fetching strategies,
some additional annotations have been introduced:

• @LazyToOne: defines the lazyness option on @ManyToOne and @OneToOne associations.

LazyToOneOption can be PROXY (ie use a proxy based lazy loading), NO_PROXY (use a bytecode

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

enhancement based lazy loading - note that build time bytecode processing is necessary) and
FALSE (association not lazy)

• @LazyCollection: defines the lazyness option on @ManyToMany and @OneToMany associations.

LazyCollectionOption can be TRUE (the collection is lazy and will be loaded when its state is
accessed), EXTRA (the collection is lazy and all operations will try to avoid the collection loading,
this is especially useful for huge collections when loading all the elements is not necessary)
and FALSE (association not lazy)

• @Fetch: defines the fetching strategy used to load the association. FetchMode can be SELECT
(a select is triggered when the association needs to be loaded), SUBSELECT (only available for
collections, use a subselect strategy - please refers to the Hibernate Reference Documentation
for more information) or JOIN (use a SQL JOIN to load the association while loading the owner
entity). JOIN overrides any lazy attribute (an association loaded through a JOIN strategy cannot
be lazy).

The Hibernate annotations overrides the EJB3 fetching options.

Table 2.3. Lazy and fetch options equivalent

Annotations Lazy Fetch

@[One|Many]ToOne] @LazyToOne(PROXY) @Fetch(SELECT)
(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@[One|Many]ToOne] @LazyToOne(FALSE) @Fetch(JOIN)
(fetch=FetchType.EAGER)
@ManyTo[One|Many] @LazyCollection(TRUE) @Fetch(SELECT)
(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
@ManyTo[One|Many] @LazyCollection(FALSE) @Fetch(JOIN)
(fetch=FetchType.EAGER)

2.4.5.2. @Any
The @Any annotation defines a polymorphic association to classes from multiple tables. This type of
mapping always requires more than one column. The first column holds the type of the associated
entity. The remaining columns hold the identifier. It is impossible to specify a foreign key constraint
for this kind of association, so this is most certainly not meant as the usual way of mapping
(polymorphic) associations. You should use this only in very special cases (eg. audit logs, user
session data, etc).

The @Any annotation describes the column holding the metadata information. To link the value
of the metadata information and an actual entity type, The @AnyDef and @AnyDefs annotations
are used.

@Any( metaColumn = @Column( name = "property_type" ), fetch=FetchType.EAGER )

@AnyMetaDef(
idType = "integer",

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 Collection related annotations

metaType = "string",
metaValues = {
@MetaValue( value = "S", targetEntity = StringProperty.class ),
@MetaValue( value = "I", targetEntity = IntegerProperty.class )
} )
@JoinColumn( name = "property_id" )
public Property getMainProperty() {
return mainProperty;
}

idType represents the target entities identifier property type and metaType the metadata type
(usually String).

Note that @AnyDef can be mutualized and reused. It is recommended to place it as a package
metadata in this case.

//on a package
@AnyMetaDef( name="property"
idType = "integer",
metaType = "string",
metaValues = {
@MetaValue( value = "S", targetEntity = StringProperty.class ),
@MetaValue( value = "I", targetEntity = IntegerProperty.class )
} )
package org.hibernate.test.annotations.any;

//in a class
@Any( metaDef="property", metaColumn = @Column( name = "property_type" ), fetch=FetchType.EAGER )
@JoinColumn( name = "property_id" )
public Property getMainProperty() {
return mainProperty;
}

2.4.6. Collection related annotations

2.4.6.1. Enhance collection settings

It is possible to set

• the batch size for collections using @BatchSize

• the where clause, using @Where (applied on the target entity) or @WhereJoinTable (applied
on the association table)

• the check clause, using @Check

• the SQL order by clause, using @OrderBy

• the delete cascade strategy through @OnDelete(action=OnDeleteAction.CASCADE)

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

• the collection immutability using @Immutable: if set specifies that the elements of the collection
never change (a minor performance optimization in some cases)

• a custom collection persister (ie the persistence strategy used) using @Persister: the class
must implement org.hibernate.persister.collectionCollectionPersister

You can also declare a sort comparator. Use the @Sort annotation. Expressing the comparator
type you want between unsorted, natural or custom comparator. If you want to use your own
comparator implementation, you'll also have to express the implementation class using the
comparator attribute. Note that you need to use either a SortedSet or a SortedMap interface.

@OneToMany(cascade=CascadeType.ALL, fetch=FetchType.EAGER)
@JoinColumn(name="CUST_ID")
@Sort(type = SortType.COMPARATOR, comparator = TicketComparator.class)
@Where(clause="1=1")
@OnDelete(action=OnDeleteAction.CASCADE)
public SortedSet<Ticket> getTickets() {
return tickets;
}

Please refer to the previous descriptions of these annotations for more informations.

Foreign key constraints, while generated by Hibernate, have a fairly unreadable name. You can
override the constraint name by use @ForeignKey. Note that this annotation has to be placed on
the owning side of the relationship, inverseName referencing to the other side constraint.

@Entity
public class Woman {
...
@ManyToMany(cascade = {CascadeType.ALL})
@ForeignKey(name = "TO_WOMAN_FK", inverseName = "TO_MAN_FK")
public Set<Man> getMens() {
return mens;
}
}

alter table Man_Woman add constraint TO_WOMAN_FK foreign key (woman_id) references Woman
alter table Man_Woman add constraint TO_MAN_FK foreign key (man_id) references Man

2.4.6.2. Extra collection types

2.4.6.2.1. Bidirectional association with indexed collections

A bidirectional association where one end is an indexed collection (ie. represented as a

@OrderColumn, or as a Map) requires special consideration. If a property on the associated class
explicitly maps the indexed value, the use of mappedBy is permitted:

@Entity

64
 Collection related annotations

public class Parent {

@OneToMany(mappedBy="parent")
@OrderColumn(name="order")
private List<Child> children;
...
}

@Entity
public class Child {
...
//the index column is mapped as a property in the associated entity
@Column(name="order")
private int order;

@ManyToOne
@JoinColumn(name="parent_id", nullable=false)
private Parent parent;
...
}

But, if there is no such property on the child class, we can't think of the association as truly
bidirectional (there is information available at one end of the association that is not available at
the other end: the index). In this case, we can't map the collection as mappedBy. Instead, we could
use the following mapping:

@Entity
public class Parent {
@OneToMany
@OrderColumn(name="order")
@JoinColumn(name="parent_id", nullable=false)
private List<Child> children;
...
}

@Entity
public class Child {
...
@ManyToOne
@JoinColumn(name="parent_id", insertable=false, updatable=false, nullable=false)
private Parent parent;
...
}

Note that in this mapping, the collection-valued end of the association is responsible for updating
the foreign key.

2.4.6.2.2. Bag with primary key

Another interesting feature is the ability to define a surrogate primary key to a bag collection. This
remove pretty much all of the drawbacks of bags: update and removal are efficient, more than
one EAGER bag per query or per entity. This primary key will be contained in a additional column
of your collection table but will not be visible to the Java application. @CollectionId is used to

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

mark a collection as id bag, it also allow to override the primary key column(s), the primary key
type and the generator strategy. The strategy can be identity, or any defined generator name
of your application.

@Entity
@TableGenerator(name="ids_generator", table="IDS")
public class Passport {
...

@ManyToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
@JoinTable(name="PASSPORT_VISASTAMP")
@CollectionId(
columns = @Column(name="COLLECTION_ID"),
type=@Type(type="long"),
generator = "ids_generator"
)
private Collection<Stamp> visaStamp = new ArrayList();
...
}

2.4.6.2.3. @ManyToAny

@ManyToAny allows polymorphic associations to classes from multiple tables. This type of mapping
always requires more than one column. The first column holds the type of the associated entity.
The remaining columns hold the identifier. It is impossible to specify a foreign key constraint for this
kind of association, so this is most certainly not meant as the usual way of mapping (polymorphic)
associations. You should use this only in very special cases (eg. audit logs, user session data, etc).

@ManyToAny(
metaColumn = @Column( name = "property_type" ) )
@AnyMetaDef(
idType = "integer",
metaType = "string",
metaValues = {
@MetaValue( value = "S", targetEntity = StringProperty.class ),
@MetaValue( value = "I", targetEntity = IntegerProperty.class ) } )
@Cascade( { org.hibernate.annotations.CascadeType.ALL } )
@JoinTable( name = "obj_properties", joinColumns = @JoinColumn( name = "obj_id" ),
inverseJoinColumns = @JoinColumn( name = "property_id" ) )
public List<Property> getGeneralProperties() {

Like @Any, @ManyToAny can use named @AnyDefs, see Section 2.4.5.2, “@Any” for more info.

2.4.7. Cascade
Hibernate offers more operations than the Java Persistence specification. You can use the
@Cascade annotation to cascade the following operations:

• PERSIST

66
 Filters

• MERGE

• REMOVE

• REFRESH

• DELETE

• SAVE_UPDATE

• REPLICATE

• DELETE_ORPHAN (alternatively, use the @OneToOne.orphanRemoval or

@OneToMany.orphanRemoval flag)

• LOCK

• EVICT (alternatively, use the standard DETACH flag).

This is especially useful for SAVE_UPDATE (which is the operation cascaded at flush time if you
use plain Hibernate Annotations - Hibernate EntityManager cascade PERSIST at flush time as per
the specification).

@OneToMany( cascade = {CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.MERGE} )

@Cascade(org.hibernate.annotations.CascadeType.REPLICATE)
public Collection<Employer> getEmployers()

It is recommended to use @Cascade to compliment @*To*(cascade=...) as shown in the previous

example.

2.4.8. Filters
Hibernate has the ability to apply arbitrary filters on top of your data. Those filters are applied at
runtime on a given session. First, you need to define them.

@org.hibernate.annotations.FilterDef or @FilterDefs define filter definition(s) used by

filter(s) using the same name. A filter definition has a name() and an array of parameters(). A
parameter will allow you to adjust the behavior of the filter at runtime. Each parameter is defined
by a @ParamDef which has a name and a type. You can also define a defaultCondition() parameter
for a given @FilterDef to set the default condition to use when none are defined in each individual
@Filter. A @FilterDef(s) can be defined at the class or package level.

We now need to define the SQL filter clause applied to either the entity load or the collection load.
@Filter is used and placed either on the entity or the collection element

@Entity
@FilterDef(name="minLength", parameters=@ParamDef( name="minLength", type="integer" ) )
@Filters( {

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

@Filter(name="betweenLength", condition=":minLength <= length and :maxLength >= length"),

@Filter(name="minLength", condition=":minLength <= length")
} )
public class Forest { ... }

When the collection use an association table as a relational representation, you might want to
apply the filter condition to the association table itself or to the target entity table. To apply the
constraint on the target entity, use the regular @Filter annotation. However, if you wan to target
the association table, use the @FilterJoinTable annotation.

@OneToMany
@JoinTable
//filter on the target entity table
@Filter(name="betweenLength", condition=":minLength <= length and :maxLength >= length")
//filter on the association table
@FilterJoinTable(name="security", condition=":userlevel >= requredLevel")
public Set<Forest> getForests() { ... }

2.4.9. Queries
Since Hibernate has more features on named queries than the one
defined in the JPA specification, @org.hibernate.annotations.NamedQuery,
@org.hibernate.annotations.NamedQueries,
@org.hibernate.annotations.NamedNativeQuery and
@org.hibernate.annotations.NamedNativeQueries have been introduced. They add some
attributes to the standard version and can be used as a replacement:

• flushMode: define the query flush mode (Always, Auto, Commit or Manual)

• cacheable: whether the query should be cached or not

• cacheRegion: cache region used if the query is cached

• fetchSize: JDBC statement fetch size for this query

• timeout: query time out

• callable: for native queries only, to be set to true for stored procedures

• comment: if comments are activated, the comment seen when the query is sent to the database.

• cacheMode: Cache interaction mode (get, ignore, normal, put or refresh)

• readOnly: whether or not the elements retrievent from the query are in read only mode.

Those hints can be set in a standard @javax.persistence.NamedQuery annotations through the

detyped @QueryHint. Another key advantage is the ability to set those annotations at a package
level.

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 Custom SQL for CRUD operations

2.4.10. Custom SQL for CRUD operations

Hibernate gives you the ability to override every single SQL statement generated. We have seen
native SQL query usage already, but you can also override the SQL statement used to load or
change the state of entities.

@Entity
@Table(name="CHAOS")
@SQLInsert( sql="INSERT INTO CHAOS(size, name, nickname, id) VALUES(?,upper(?),?,?)")
@SQLUpdate( sql="UPDATE CHAOS SET size = ?, name = upper(?), nickname = ? WHERE id = ?")
@SQLDelete( sql="DELETE CHAOS WHERE id = ?")
@SQLDeleteAll( sql="DELETE CHAOS")
@Loader(namedQuery = "chaos")
@NamedNativeQuery(name="chaos", query="select id, size, name, lower( nickname ) as nickname from
CHAOS where id= ?", resultClass = Chaos.class)
public class Chaos {
@Id
private Long id;
private Long size;
private String name;
private String nickname;

@SQLInsert, @SQLUpdate, @SQLDelete, @SQLDeleteAll respectively override the INSERT

statement, UPDATE statement, DELETE statement, DELETE statement to remove all entities.

If you expect to call a store procedure, be sure to set the callable attribute to true
(@SQLInsert(callable=true, ...)).

To check that the execution happens correctly, Hibernate allows you to define one of those three
strategies:

• NONE: no check is performed: the store procedure is expected to fail upon issues

• COUNT: use of rowcount to check that the update is successful

• PARAM: like COUNT but using an output parameter rather that the standard mechanism

To define the result check style, use the check parameter

(@SQLUpdate(check=ResultCheckStyle.COUNT, ...)).

You can also override the SQL load statement by a native SQL query or a HQL query. You just
have to refer to a named query with the @Loader annotation.

You can use the exact same set of annotations to override the collection related statements.

@OneToMany
@JoinColumn(name="chaos_fk")
@SQLInsert( sql="UPDATE CASIMIR_PARTICULE SET chaos_fk = ? where id = ?")
@SQLDelete( sql="UPDATE CASIMIR_PARTICULE SET chaos_fk = null where id = ?")

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

private Set<CasimirParticle> particles = new HashSet<CasimirParticle>();

The parameters order is important and is defined by the order Hibernate handle
properties. You can see the expected order by enabling debug logging for the
org.hibernate.persister.entity level. With this level enabled Hibernate will print out the
static SQL that is used to create, update, delete etc. entities. (To see the expected sequence,
remember to not include your custom SQL through annotations as that will override the Hibernate
generated static sql.)

Overriding SQL statements for

secondary tables is also possible using
@org.hibernate.annotations.Table and either (or all) attributes sqlInsert, sqlUpdate,
sqlDelete:

@Entity
@SecondaryTables({
@SecondaryTable(name = "`Cat nbr1`"),
@SecondaryTable(name = "Cat2"})
@org.hibernate.annotations.Tables( {
@Table(appliesTo = "Cat", comment = "My cat table" ),
@Table(appliesTo = "Cat2", foreignKey = @ForeignKey(name="FK_CAT2_CAT"), fetch = FetchMode.SELECT,
sqlInsert=@SQLInsert(sql="insert into Cat2(storyPart2, id) values(upper(?), ?)") )
} )
public class Cat implements Serializable {

The previous example also show that you can give a comment to a given table (promary or
secondary): This comment will be used for DDL generation.

2.4.11. Tuplizer
org.hibernate.tuple.Tuplizer, and its sub-interfaces, are responsible for managing
a particular representation of a piece of data, given that representation's
org.hibernate.EntityMode. If a given piece of data is thought of as a data structure,
then a tuplizer is the thing which knows how to create such a data structure and how to
extract values from and inject values into such a data structure. For example, for the POJO
entity mode, the correpsonding tuplizer knows how create the POJO through its constructor
and how to access the POJO properties using the defined property accessors. There are
two high-level types of Tuplizers, represented by the org.hibernate.tuple.EntityTuplizer
and org.hibernate.tuple.ComponentTuplizer interfaces. EntityTuplizers are responsible for
managing the above mentioned contracts in regards to entities, while ComponentTuplizers do
the same for components. Check the Hibernate reference documentation for more information.

To define tuplixer in annotations, simply use the @Tuplizer annotation on the according element

@Entity
@Tuplizer(impl = DynamicEntityTuplizer.class)
public interface Cuisine {
@Id

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 Fetch profiles

@GeneratedValue
public Long getId();
public void setId(Long id);

public String getName();

public void setName(String name);

@Tuplizer(impl = DynamicComponentTuplizer.class)
public Country getCountry();
public void setCountry(Country country);
}

2.4.12. Fetch profiles

In Section 2.4.5.1, “Lazy options and fetching modes” we have seen how to affect the
fetching strategy for associated objects using the @Fetch annotation. An alternative approach
is a so called fetch profile. A fetch profile is a named configuration associated with the
org.hibernate.SessionFactory which gets enabled on the org.hibernate.Session. Once
enabled on a org.hibernate.Session, the fetch profile will be in affect for that session until it is
explicitly disabled. Lets look at an example:

@Entity
@FetchProfile(name = "customer-with-orders", fetchOverrides = {
@FetchProfile.FetchOverride(entity = Customer.class, association = "orders", mode = FetchMode.JOIN)
})
public class Customer {
@Id
@GeneratedValue
private long id;

private String name;

private long customerNumber;

@OneToMany
private Set<Order> orders;

// standard getter/setter
...
}

In the normal case the orders association would be lazy loaded by Hibernate, but in a usecase
where it is more efficient to load the customer and their orders together you could do something
like this:

Session session = ...;

session.enableFetchProfile( "customer-with-orders" ); // name matches @FetchProfile name
Customer customer = (Customer) session.get( Customer.class, customerId );
session.disableFetchProfile( "customer-with-orders" ); // or just close the session
...

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Chapter 2. Mapping Entities

Note

Fetch profile definitions are global and it does not matter on which class you place
them. You can place the @FetchProfile annotation either onto a class or package
(package-info.java). In order to define multiple fetch profiles for the same class or
package @FetchProfiles can be used.

Currently only join style fetch profiles are supported, but they plan is to support additional
styles. See HHH-3414 [http://opensource.atlassian.com/projects/hibernate/browse/HHH-3414]
for details. Refer also to the discussion about fetch profiles in the Hibernate Core documentation.

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Chapter 3.

Overriding metadata through XML

The primary target for metadata in EJB3 is annotations, but the EJB3 specification provides a way
to override or replace the annotation defined metadata through an XML deployment descriptor.
In the current release only pure EJB3 annotations overriding are supported. If you wish to use
Hibernate specific features in some entities, you'll have to either use annotations or fallback to
hbm files. You can of course mix and match annotated entities and entities describes in hbm files.

The unit test suite shows some additional XML file samples.

3.1. Principles
The XML deployment descriptor structure has been designed to reflect the annotations one. So if
you know the annotations structure, using the XML schema will be straightforward for you.

You can define one or more XML files describing your metadata, these files will be merged by
the overriding engine.

3.1.1. Global level metadata

You can define global level metadata available for all XML files. You must not define these
metadata more than once per deployment.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<entity-mappings
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm orm_2_0.xsd"
version="2.0">

<persistence-unit-metadata>
<xml-mapping-metadata-complete/>
<persistence-unit-defaults>
<schema>myschema</schema>
<catalog>mycatalog</catalog>
<cascade-persist/>
</persistence-unit-defaults>
</persistence-unit-metadata>

xml-mapping-metadata-complete means that all entity, mapped-superclasses and embeddable

metadata should be picked up from XML (ie ignore annotations).

schema / catalog will override all default definitions of schema and catalog in the metadata
(both XML and annotations).

cascade-persist means that all associations have PERSIST as a cascade type. We recommend
you to not use this feature.

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Chapter 3. Overriding metadat...

3.1.2. Entity level metadata

You can either define or override metadata informations on a given entity.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<entity-mappings
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm orm_2_0.xsd"
version="2.0">

<package>org.hibernate.test.annotations.reflection</package>

<entity class="Administration" access="PROPERTY" metadata-complete="true">

<table name="tbl_admin">
<unique-constraint>
<column-name>firstname</column-name>
<column-name>lastname</column-name>
</unique-constraint>
</table>

<secondary-table name="admin2">
<primary-key-join-column name="admin_id" referenced-column-name="id"/>
<unique-constraint>
<column-name>address</column-name>
</unique-constraint>
</secondary-table>

<id-class class="SocialSecurityNumber"/>

<inheritance strategy="JOINED"/>

<sequence-generator name="seqhilo" sequence-name="seqhilo"/>

<table-generator name="table" table="tablehilo"/>

...
</entity>

<entity class="PostalAdministration">

<primary-key-join-column name="id"/>
...
</entity>
</entity-mappings>

entity-mappings: entity-mappings is the root element for all XML files. You must declare
the xml schema, the schema file is included in the hibernate-annotations.jar file, no internet
access will be processed by Hibernate Annotations.
package (optional): default package used for all non qualified class names in the given
deployment descriptor file.
entity: desribes an entity.

metadata-complete defines whether the metadata description for this element is complete
or not (in other words, if annotations present at the class level should be considered or not).

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 Entity level metadata

An entity has to have a class attribute refering the java class the metadata applies on.

You can overrides entity name through the name attribute, if none is defined and if an
@Entity.name is present, then it is used (provided that metadata complete is not set).

For metadata complete (see below) element, you can define an access (either FIELD or
PROPERTY (default)). For non medatada complete element, if access is not defined, the @Id
position will lead position, if access is defined, the value is used.
table: you can declare table properties (name, schema, catalog), if none is defined, the java
annotation is used.

You can define one or several unique constraints as seen in the example
secondary-table: defines a secondary table very much like a regular table except that you
can define the primary key / foreign key column(s) through the primary-key-join-column
element. On non metadata complete, annotation secondary tables are used only if there is
no secondary-table definition, annotations are ignored otherwise.
id-class: defines the id class in a similar way @IdClass does
inheritance: defines the inheritance strategy (JOINED, TABLE_PER_CLASS, SINGLE_TABLE),
Available only at the root entity level
sequence-generator: defines a sequence generator
table-generator: defines a table generator
primary-key-join-column: defines the primary key join column for sub entities when
JOINED inheritance strategy is used

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<entity-mappings
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm orm_2_0.xsd"
version="2.0">

<package>org.hibernate.test.annotations.reflection</package>
<entity class="Music" access="PROPERTY" metadata-complete="true">

<discriminator-value>Generic</discriminator-value>
<discriminator-column length="34"/>
...
</entity>

<entity class="PostalAdministration">
<primary-key-join-column name="id"/>

<named-query name="adminById">
<query>select m from Administration m where m.id = :id</query>
<hint name="org.hibernate.timeout" value="200"/>
</named-query>

<named-native-query name="allAdmin" result-set-mapping="adminrs">

<query>select *, count(taxpayer_id) as taxPayerNumber
from Administration, TaxPayer
where taxpayer_admin_id = admin_id group by ...</query>

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Chapter 3. Overriding metadat...

<hint name="org.hibernate.timeout" value="200"/>

</named-native-query>

<sql-result-set-mapping name="adminrs">
<entity-result entity-class="Administration">
<field-result name="name" column="fld_name"/>
</entity-result>
<column-result name="taxPayerNumber"/>
</sql-result-set-mapping>

<attribute-override name="ground">
<column name="fld_ground" unique="true" scale="2"/>
</attribute-override>
<association-override name="referer">
<join-column name="referer_id" referenced-column-name="id"/>
</association-override>
...
</entity>
</entity-mappings>

discriminator-value / discriminator-column: defines the discriminator value and the

column holding it when the SINGLE_TABLE inheritance strategy is chosen
named-query: defines named queries and possibly the hints associated to them. Those
definitions are additive to the one defined in annotations, if two definitions have the same
name, the XML one has priority.
named-native-query: defines an named native query and its sql result set mapping.
Alternatively, you can define the result-class. Those definitions are additive to the one
defined in annotations, if two definitions have the same name, the XML one has priority.
sql-result-set-mapping: describes the result set mapping structure. You can define both
entity and column mappings. Those definitions are additive to the one defined in annotations,
if two definitions have the same name, the XML one has priority
attribute-override / association-override: defines a column or join column
overriding. This overriding is additive to the one defined in annotations

Same applies for <embeddable> and <mapped-superclass>.

3.1.3. Property level metadata

You can of course defines XML overriding for properties. If metadata complete is defined, then
additional properties (ie at the Java level) will be ignored. Otherwise, once you start overriding a
property, all annotations on the given property are ignored. All property level metadata behave in
entity/attributes, mapped-superclass/attributes or embeddable/attributes.

<attributes>
<id name="id">
<column name="fld_id"/>
<generated-value generator="generator" strategy="SEQUENCE"/>
<temporal>DATE</temporal>
<sequence-generator name="generator" sequence-name="seq"/>
</id>
<version name="version"/>
<embedded name="embeddedObject">

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 Association level metadata

<attribute-override name"subproperty">
<column name="my_column"/>
</attribute-override>
</embedded>
<basic name="status" optional="false">
<enumerated>STRING</enumerated>
</basic>
<basic name="serial" optional="true">
<column name="serialbytes"/>
<lob/>
</basic>
<basic name="terminusTime" fetch="LAZY">
<temporal>TIMESTAMP</temporal>
</basic>
</attributes>

You can override a property through id, embedded-id, version, embedded and basic. Each of
these elements can have subelements accordingly: lob, temporal, enumerated, column.

3.1.4. Association level metadata

You can define XML overriding for associations. All association level metadata behave in entity/
attributes, mapped-superclass/attributes or embeddable/attributes.

<attributes>
<one-to-many name="players" fetch="EAGER">
<map-key name="name"/>
<join-column name="driver"/>
<join-column name="number"/>
</one-to-many>
<many-to-many name="roads" target-entity="Administration">
<order-by>maxSpeed</order-by>
<join-table name="bus_road">
<join-column name="driver"/>
<join-column name="number"/>
<inverse-join-column name="road_id"/>
<unique-constraint>
<column-name>driver</column-name>
<column-name>number</column-name>
</unique-constraint>
</join-table>
</many-to-many>
<many-to-many name="allTimeDrivers" mapped-by="drivenBuses">
</attributes>

You can override an association through one-to-many, one-to-one, many-to-one, and many-to-
many. Each of these elements can have subelements accordingly: join-table (which can have
join-columns and inverse-join-columns), join-columns, map-key, and order-by. mapped-
by and target-entity can be defined as attributes when it makes sense. Once again the
structure is reflects the annotations structure. You can find all semantic informations in the chapter
describing annotations.

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Chapter 4.

Additional modules
Hibernate Annotations mainly focuses on persistence metadata. The project also have a nice
integration with some external modules.

4.1. Bean Validation

Bean Validation standardizes how to define and declare domain model level constraints. You can,
for example, express that a property should never be null, that the account balance should be
strictly positive, etc. These domain model constraints are declared in the bean itself by annotating
its properties. Bean Validation can then read them and check for constraint violations. The
validation mechanism can be executed in different layers in your application without having to
duplicate any of these rules (presentation layer, data access layer). Following the DRY principle,
Bean Validation and its reference implementation Hibernate Validator has been designed for that
purpose.

The integration between Hibernate and Bean Validation works at two levels. First, it is able to
check in-memory instances of a class for constraint violations. Second, it can apply the constraints
to the Hibernate metamodel and incorporate them into the generated database schema.

Each constraint annotation is associated to a validator implementation responsible for checking

the constraint on the entity instance. A validator can also (optionally) apply the constraint to the
Hibernate metamodel, allowing Hibernate to generate DDL that expresses the constraint. With
the appropriate event listener, you can execute the checking operation on inserts, updates and
deletes done by Hibernate.

When checking instances at runtime, Hibernate Validator returns information about

constraint violations in a set of ConstraintViolations. Among other information, the
ConstraintViolation contains an error description message that can embed the parameter
values bundle with the annotation (eg. size limit), and message strings that may be externalized
to a ResourceBundle.

4.1.1. Adding Bean Validation

To enable the Hibernate - Bean Validation integration, simply add a Bean Validation provider
(preferably Hibernate Validation 4) in your classpath.

4.1.2. Configuration
By default, no configuration is necessary.

The Default group is validated on entity insert and update and the database model is updated
accordingly based on the Default group as well.

You can customize the Bean Validation integration by setting the validation mode. Use
the javax.persistence.validation.mode property and set it up for example in your
persistence.xml file or your hibernate.cfg.xml file. Several options are possible:

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Chapter 4. Additional modules

• auto (default): enable integration between Bean Validation and Hibernate (callback and ddl
generation) only if Bean Validation is present in the classpath.

• none: disable all integration between Bean Validation and Hibernate

• callback: only validate entities when they are either inserted, updated or deleted. An exception
is raised if no Bean Validation provider is present in the classpath.

• ddl: only apply constraints to the database schema when generated by Hibernate. An exception
is raised if no Bean Validation provider is present in the classpath. This value is not defined by
the Java Persistence spec and is specific to Hibernate.

Note

You can use both callback and ddl together by setting the property to callback,
dll

<persistence ...>
<persistence-unit ...>
...
<properties>
<property name="javax.persistence.validation.mode"
value="callback, ddl"/>
</properties>
</persistence-unit>
</persistence>

This is equivalent to auto except that if no Bean Validation provider is present, an

exception is raised.

If you want to validate different groups during insertion, update and deletion, use:

• javax.persistence.validation.group.pre-persist: groups validated when an entity is

about to be persisted (default to Default)

• javax.persistence.validation.group.pre-update: groups validated when an entity is

about to be updated (default to Default)

• javax.persistence.validation.group.pre-remove: groups validated when an entity is

about to be deleted (default to no group)

• org.hibernate.validator.group.ddl: groups considered when applying constraints on the

database schema (default to Default)

Each property accepts the fully qualified class names of the groups validated separated by a
comma (,)

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 Catching violations

Example 4.1. Using custom groups for validation

<persistence ...>
<persistence-unit ...>
...
<properties>
<property name="javax.persistence.validation.group.pre-update"
value="javax.validation.group.Default, com.acme.group.Strict"/>
<property name="javax.persistence.validation.group.pre-remove"
value="com.acme.group.OnDelete"/>
<property name="org.hibernate.validator.group.ddl"
value="com.acme.group.DDL"/>
</properties>
</persistence-unit>
</persistence>

Note
You can set these properties in hibernate.cfg.xml, hibernate.properties or
programmatically.

4.1.3. Catching violations

If an entity is found to be invalid, the list of constraint violations is propagated by the
ConstraintViolationException which exposes the set of ConstraintViolations.

This exception is wrapped in a RollbackException when the violation happens at commit time.
Otherwise the ConstraintViolationException is returned (for example when calling flush().
Note that generally, catchable violations are validated at a higher level (for example in Seam /
JSF 2 via the JSF - Bean Validation integration or in your business layer by explicitly calling Bean
Validation).

An application code will rarely be looking for a ConstraintViolationException raised by

Hibernate. This exception should be treated as fatal and the persistence context should be
discarded (EntityManager or Session).

4.1.4. Database schema

Hibernate uses Bean Validation constraints to generate an accurate database schema:

• @NotNull leads to a not null column (unless it conflicts with components or table inheritance)

• @Size.max leads to a varchar(max) definition for Strings

• @Min, @Max lead to column checks (like value <= max)

• @Digits leads to the definition of precision and scale (ever wondered which is which? It's easy
now with @Digits :) )

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Chapter 4. Additional modules

These constraints can be declared directly on the entity properties or indirectly by using constraint
composition.

4.2. Hibernate Validator 3

Warning
We strongly encourage you to use Hibernate Validator 4 and the Bean Validation
integration. Consider Hibernate Validator 3 as legacy.

4.2.1. Description
Annotations are a very convenient and elegant way to specify invariant constraints for a domain
model. You can, for example, express that a property should never be null, that the account
balance should be strictly positive, etc. These domain model constraints are declared in the
bean itself by annotating its properties. A validator can then read them and check for constraint
violations. The validation mechanism can be executed in different layers in your application without
having to duplicate any of these rules (presentation layer, data access layer). Following the DRY
principle, Hibernate Validator has been designed for that purpose.

Hibernate Validator works at two levels. First, it is able to check in-memory instances of a class
for constraint violations. Second, it can apply the constraints to the Hibernate metamodel and
incorporate them into the generated database schema.

Each constraint annotation is associated to a validator implementation responsible for checking

the constraint on the entity instance. A validator can also (optionally) apply the constraint to the
Hibernate metamodel, allowing Hibernate to generate DDL that expresses the constraint. With
the appropriate event listener, you can execute the checking operation on inserts and updates
done by Hibernate. Hibernate Validator is not limited to use with Hibernate. You can easily use
it anywhere in your application.

When checking instances at runtime, Hibernate Validator returns information about constraint
violations in an array of InvalidValue s. Among other information, the InvalidValue contains
an error description message that can embed the parameter values bundle with the annotation
(eg. length limit), and message strings that may be externalized to a ResourceBundle .

4.2.2. Integration with Hibernate Annotations

If Hibernate Validator (hibernate-validator.jar) is available in the classpath, Hibernate
Annotations will integrate in two ways:

• Constraints will be applied to the Data Definition Language. In other words, the database
schema will reflect the constraints (provided that you use the hbm2ddl tool).

• Before an entity change is applied to the database (insert or update), the entity is validated.
Validation errors, if any, will be carried over through an InvalidStateException.

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 Hibernate Search

For entities free of validation rules, the runtime performance cost is null.

To disable constraint propagation to DDL, set up hibernate.validator.apply_to_ddl to false

in the configuration file. Such a need is very uncommon and not recommended.

To disable pre-entity change validation, set up

hibernate.validator.autoregister_listeners to false in the configuration file. Such a need
is very uncommon and not recommended.

Check the Hibernate Validator reference documentation for more information.

4.3. Hibernate Search

4.3.1. Description
Full text search engines like Apache Lucene™ are a very powerful technology to bring free text/
efficient queries to applications. If suffers several mismatches when dealing with a object domain
model (keeping the index up to date, mismatch between the index structure and the domain model,
querying mismatch...) Hibernate Search indexes your domain model thanks to a few annotations,
takes care of the database / index synchronization and brings you back regular managed objects
from free text queries. Hibernate Search is using Apache Lucene [http://lucene.apache.org] under
the cover.

4.3.2. Integration with Hibernate Annotations

Hibernate Search integrates with Hibernate Annotations transparently provided that hibernate-
search.jar is present in the classpath. If you do not wish to automatically register Hibernate Search
event listeners, you can set hibernate.search.autoregister_listeners to false. Such a need
is very uncommon and not recommended.

Check the Hibernate Search reference documentation for more information.

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