Hibernate Reference Documentation

Hibernate Reference Documentation
Version: 3.1.1
Table of Contents
Preface .......................................................................................................................................... viii
1. Introduction to Hibernate ........................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Preface .............................................................................................................................. 1
1.2. Part 1 - The first Hibernate Application ............................................................................... 1
1.2.1. The first class .......................................................................................................... 1
1.2.2. The mapping file ..................................................................................................... 3
1.2.3. Hibernate configuration ........................................................................................... 4
1.2.4. Building with Ant .................................................................................................... 6
1.2.5. Startup and helpers .................................................................................................. 6
1.2.6. Loading and storing objects ...................................................................................... 8
1.3. Part 2 - Mapping associations ............................................................................................ 10
1.3.1. Mapping the Person class ....................................................................................... 10
1.3.2. A unidirectional Set-based association .................................................................... 11
1.3.3. Working the association ......................................................................................... 12
1.3.4. Collection of values ............................................................................................... 13
1.3.5. Bi-directional associations ..................................................................................... 14
1.3.6. Working bi-directional links ................................................................................... 15
1.4. Part 3 - The EventManager web application ....................................................................... 16
1.4.1. Writing the basic servlet ........................................................................................ 16
1.4.2. Processing and rendering ....................................................................................... 17
1.4.3. Deploying and testing ............................................................................................ 18
1.5. Summary ......................................................................................................................... 19
2. Architecture .............................................................................................................................. 20
2.1. Overview ......................................................................................................................... 20
2.2. Instance states .................................................................................................................. 22
2.3. JMX Integration ............................................................................................................... 22
2.4. JCA Support .................................................................................................................... 23
2.5. Contextual Sessions .......................................................................................................... 23
3. Configuration ............................................................................................................................ 25
3.1. Programmatic configuration .............................................................................................. 25
3.2. Obtaining a SessionFactory ............................................................................................... 25
3.3. JDBC connections ............................................................................................................ 26
3.4. Optional configuration properties ...................................................................................... 27
3.4.1. SQL Dialects ......................................................................................................... 32
3.4.2. Outer Join Fetching ............................................................................................... 33
3.4.3. Binary Streams ...................................................................................................... 34
3.4.4. Second-level and query cache ................................................................................. 34
3.4.5. Query Language Substitution ................................................................................. 34
3.4.6. Hibernate statistics ................................................................................................ 34
3.5. Logging ........................................................................................................................... 34
3.6. Implementing a NamingStrategy ....................................................................................... 35
3.7. XML configuration file ..................................................................................................... 35
3.8. J2EE Application Server integration .................................................................................. 36
3.8.1. Transaction strategy configuration .......................................................................... 37
3.8.2. JNDI-bound SessionFactory ................................................................................... 38
3.8.3. Current Session context management with JTA ....................................................... 38
3.8.4. JMX deployment ................................................................................................... 39
4. Persistent Classes ...................................................................................................................... 40
Hibernate 3.1.1 ii
HIBERNATE - Relational Persistence for Idiomatic Java
4.1. A simple POJO example ................................................................................................... 40

4.1.1. Implement a no-argument constructor ..................................................................... 41
4.1.2. Provide an identifier property (optional) .................................................................. 41
4.1.3. Prefer non-final classes (optional) ........................................................................... 41
4.1.4. Declare accessors and mutators for persistent fields (optional) .................................. 42
4.2. Implementing inheritance ................................................................................................. 42
4.3. Implementing equals() and hashCode() .............................................................................. 42
4.4. Dynamic models .............................................................................................................. 43
4.5. Tuplizers ......................................................................................................................... 45
5. Basic O/R Mapping ................................................................................................................... 47
5.1. Mapping declaration ......................................................................................................... 47
5.1.1. Doctype ................................................................................................................ 48
5.1.2. hibernate-mapping ................................................................................................. 48
5.1.3. class ..................................................................................................................... 49
5.1.4. id .......................................................................................................................... 51
5.1.4.1. Generator ................................................................................................... 52
5.1.4.2. Hi/lo algorithm ........................................................................................... 53
5.1.4.3. UUID algorithm ......................................................................................... 53
5.1.4.4. Identity columns and sequences ................................................................... 53
5.1.4.5. Assigned identifiers .................................................................................... 54
5.1.4.6. Primary keys assigned by triggers ................................................................ 54
5.1.5. composite-id ......................................................................................................... 54
5.1.6. discriminator ......................................................................................................... 55
5.1.7. version (optional) .................................................................................................. 56
5.1.8. timestamp (optional) .............................................................................................. 56
5.1.9. property ................................................................................................................ 57
5.1.10. many-to-one ........................................................................................................ 58
5.1.11. one-to-one ........................................................................................................... 60
5.1.12. natural-id ............................................................................................................ 62
5.1.13. component, dynamic-component .......................................................................... 62
5.1.14. properties ............................................................................................................ 63
5.1.15. subclass .............................................................................................................. 64
5.1.16. joined-subclass .................................................................................................... 64
5.1.17. union-subclass ..................................................................................................... 65
5.1.18. join ..................................................................................................................... 66
5.1.19. key ..................................................................................................................... 67
5.1.20. column and formula elements ............................................................................... 67
5.1.21. import ................................................................................................................. 68
5.1.22. any ..................................................................................................................... 68
5.2. Hibernate Types ............................................................................................................... 69
5.2.1. Entities and values ................................................................................................. 69
5.2.2. Basic value types ................................................................................................... 70
5.2.3. Custom value types ............................................................................................... 71
5.3. Mapping a class more than once ........................................................................................ 72
5.4. SQL quoted identifiers ...................................................................................................... 72
5.5. Metadata alternatives ........................................................................................................ 72
5.5.1. Using XDoclet markup .......................................................................................... 73
5.5.2. Using JDK 5.0 Annotations .................................................................................... 74
5.6. Generated Properties ........................................................................................................ 75
5.7. Auxiliary Database Objects ............................................................................................... 75
6. Collection Mapping ................................................................................................................... 77
6.1. Persistent collections ........................................................................................................ 77
Hibernate 3.1.1 iii

6.2. Collection mappings ......................................................................................................... 77

6.2.1. Collection foreign keys .......................................................................................... 79
6.2.2. Collection elements ............................................................................................... 79
6.2.3. Indexed collections ................................................................................................ 79
6.2.4. Collections of values and many-to-many associations .............................................. 80
6.2.5. One-to-many associations ...................................................................................... 82
6.3. Advanced collection mappings .......................................................................................... 82
6.3.1. Sorted collections .................................................................................................. 82
6.3.2. Bidirectional associations ....................................................................................... 83
6.3.3. Bidirectional associations with indexed collections .................................................. 84
6.3.4. Ternary associations .............................................................................................. 85
6.3.5. Using an <idbag> .................................................................................................. 86
6.4. Collection examples ......................................................................................................... 86
7. Association Mappings ............................................................................................................... 89
7.1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 89
7.2. Unidirectional associations ............................................................................................... 89
7.2.1. many to one .......................................................................................................... 89
7.2.2. one to one ............................................................................................................. 89
7.2.3. one to many .......................................................................................................... 90
7.3. Unidirectional associations with join tables ........................................................................ 91
7.3.1. one to many .......................................................................................................... 91
7.3.2. many to one .......................................................................................................... 91
7.3.3. one to one ............................................................................................................. 92
7.3.4. many to many ....................................................................................................... 92
7.4. Bidirectional associations ................................................................................................. 92
7.4.1. one to many / many to one ..................................................................................... 93
7.4.2. one to one ............................................................................................................. 93
7.5. Bidirectional associations with join tables .......................................................................... 94
7.5.1. one to many / many to one ..................................................................................... 94
7.5.2. one to one ............................................................................................................. 95
7.5.3. many to many ....................................................................................................... 96
7.6. More complex association mappings ................................................................................. 96
8. Component Mapping ................................................................................................................ 98
8.1. Dependent objects ............................................................................................................ 98
8.2. Collections of dependent objects ....................................................................................... 99
8.3. Components as Map indices ............................................................................................ 100
8.4. Components as composite identifiers ............................................................................... 100
8.5. Dynamic components ..................................................................................................... 102
9. Inheritance Mapping ............................................................................................................... 103
9.1. The Three Strategies ....................................................................................................... 103
9.1.1. Table per class hierarchy ...................................................................................... 103
9.1.2. Table per subclass ............................................................................................... 104
9.1.3. Table per subclass, using a discriminator ............................................................... 104
9.1.4. Mixing table per class hierarchy with table per subclass ......................................... 105
9.1.5. Table per concrete class ....................................................................................... 105
9.1.6. Table per concrete class, using implicit polymorphism ........................................... 106
9.1.7. Mixing implicit polymorphism with other inheritance mappings ............................. 107
9.2. Limitations .................................................................................................................... 107
10. Working with objects ............................................................................................................ 109
10.1. Hibernate object states .................................................................................................. 109
10.2. Making objects persistent .............................................................................................. 109
10.3. Loading an object ......................................................................................................... 110
Hibernate 3.1.1 iv
10.4. Querying ..................................................................................................................... 111

10.4.1. Executing queries .............................................................................................. 111
10.4.1.1. Iterating results ....................................................................................... 112
10.4.1.2. Queries that return tuples ......................................................................... 112
10.4.1.3. Scalar results .......................................................................................... 112
10.4.1.4. Bind parameters ...................................................................................... 112
10.4.1.5. Pagination .............................................................................................. 113
10.4.1.6. Scrollable iteration .................................................................................. 113
10.4.1.7. Externalizing named queries .................................................................... 114
10.4.2. Filtering collections ........................................................................................... 114
10.4.3. Criteria queries .................................................................................................. 115
10.4.4. Queries in native SQL ........................................................................................ 115
10.5. Modifying persistent objects ......................................................................................... 115
10.6. Modifying detached objects .......................................................................................... 116
10.7. Automatic state detection .............................................................................................. 116
10.8. Deleting persistent objects ............................................................................................ 117
10.9. Replicating object between two different datastores ........................................................ 118
10.10. Flushing the Session ................................................................................................... 118
10.11. Transitive persistence ................................................................................................. 119
10.12. Using metadata ........................................................................................................... 120
11. Transactions And Concurrency ............................................................................................. 122
11.1. Session and transaction scopes ...................................................................................... 122
11.1.1. Unit of work ...................................................................................................... 122
11.1.2. Long conversations ............................................................................................ 123
11.1.3. Considering object identity ................................................................................. 124
11.1.4. Common issues ................................................................................................. 125
11.2. Database transaction demarcation .................................................................................. 125
11.2.1. Non-managed environment ................................................................................ 126
11.2.2. Using JTA ......................................................................................................... 127
11.2.3. Exception handling ............................................................................................ 128
11.2.4. Transaction timeout ........................................................................................... 128
11.3. Optimistic concurrency control ...................................................................................... 129
11.3.1. Application version checking ............................................................................. 129
11.3.2. Extended session and automatic versioning ......................................................... 130
11.3.3. Detached objects and automatic versioning ......................................................... 130
11.3.4. Customizing automatic versioning ...................................................................... 131
11.4. Pessimistic Locking ...................................................................................................... 131
11.5. Connection Release Modes ........................................................................................... 132
12. Interceptors and events ......................................................................................................... 134
12.1. Interceptors .................................................................................................................. 134
12.2. Event system ................................................................................................................ 135
12.3. Hibernate declarative security ....................................................................................... 136
13. Batch processing .................................................................................................................... 138
13.1. Batch inserts ................................................................................................................ 138
13.2. Batch updates ............................................................................................................... 138
13.3. The StatelessSession interface ....................................................................................... 139
13.4. DML-style operations ................................................................................................... 139
14. HQL: The Hibernate Query Language .................................................................................. 142
14.1. Case Sensitivity ............................................................................................................ 142
14.2. The from clause ............................................................................................................ 142
14.3. Associations and joins .................................................................................................. 142
14.4. Forms of join syntax ..................................................................................................... 144
Hibernate 3.1.1 v
14.5. The select clause .......................................................................................................... 144

14.6. Aggregate functions ..................................................................................................... 145
14.7. Polymorphic queries ..................................................................................................... 145
14.8. The where clause .......................................................................................................... 146
14.9. Expressions .................................................................................................................. 147
14.10. The order by clause .................................................................................................... 150
14.11. The group by clause .................................................................................................... 150
14.12. Subqueries ................................................................................................................. 151
14.13. HQL examples ........................................................................................................... 151
14.14. Bulk update and delete ................................................................................................ 153
14.15. Tips & Tricks ............................................................................................................. 153
15. Criteria Queries .................................................................................................................... 155
15.1. Creating a Criteria instance ........................................................................................... 155
15.2. Narrowing the result set ................................................................................................ 155
15.3. Ordering the results ...................................................................................................... 156
15.4. Associations ................................................................................................................. 156
15.5. Dynamic association fetching ........................................................................................ 157
15.6. Example queries ........................................................................................................... 157
15.7. Projections, aggregation and grouping ........................................................................... 158
15.8. Detached queries and subqueries ................................................................................... 159
15.9. Queries by natural identifier .......................................................................................... 159
16. Native SQL ............................................................................................................................ 161
16.1. Using a SQLQuery ....................................................................................................... 161
16.2. Alias and property references ........................................................................................ 162
16.3. Named SQL queries ..................................................................................................... 163
16.3.1. Using return-property to explicitly specify column/alias names ............................. 164
16.3.2. Using stored procedures for querying .................................................................. 165
16.3.2.1. Rules/limitations for using stored procedures ............................................ 165
16.4. Custom SQL for create, update and delete ...................................................................... 166
16.5. Custom SQL for loading ............................................................................................... 167
17. Filtering data ......................................................................................................................... 168
17.1. Hibernate filters ........................................................................................................... 168
18. XML Mapping ...................................................................................................................... 170
18.1. Working with XML data ............................................................................................... 170
18.1.1. Specifying XML and class mapping together ....................................................... 170
18.1.2. Specifying only an XML mapping ...................................................................... 170
18.2. XML mapping metadata ............................................................................................... 171
18.3. Manipulating XML data ............................................................................................... 172
19. Improving performance ........................................................................................................ 174
19.1. Fetching strategies ........................................................................................................ 174
19.1.1. Working with lazy associations .......................................................................... 175
19.1.2. Tuning fetch strategies ....................................................................................... 175
19.1.3. Single-ended association proxies ........................................................................ 176
19.1.4. Initializing collections and proxies ...................................................................... 177
19.1.5. Using batch fetching .......................................................................................... 178
19.1.6. Using subselect fetching ..................................................................................... 179
19.1.7. Using lazy property fetching ............................................................................... 179
19.2. The Second Level Cache ............................................................................................... 180
19.2.1. Cache mappings ................................................................................................ 180
19.2.2. Strategy: read only ............................................................................................. 181
19.2.3. Strategy: read/write ............................................................................................ 181
19.2.4. Strategy: nonstrict read/write .............................................................................. 181
Hibernate 3.1.1 vi
19.2.5. Strategy: transactional ........................................................................................ 182

19.3. Managing the caches .................................................................................................... 182
19.4. The Query Cache ......................................................................................................... 183
19.5. Understanding Collection performance .......................................................................... 184
19.5.1. Taxonomy ......................................................................................................... 184
19.5.2. Lists, maps, idbags and sets are the most efficient collections to update ................. 185
19.5.3. Bags and lists are the most efficient inverse collections ........................................ 185
19.5.4. One shot delete .................................................................................................. 185
19.6. Monitoring performance ............................................................................................... 186
19.6.1. Monitoring a SessionFactory .............................................................................. 186
19.6.2. Metrics ............................................................................................................. 186
20. Toolset Guide ........................................................................................................................ 188
20.1. Automatic schema generation ........................................................................................ 188
20.1.1. Customizing the schema ..................................................................................... 188
20.1.2. Running the tool ................................................................................................ 190
20.1.3. Properties .......................................................................................................... 191
20.1.4. Using Ant ......................................................................................................... 191
20.1.5. Incremental schema updates ............................................................................... 192
20.1.6. Using Ant for incremental schema updates .......................................................... 192
20.1.7. Schema validation ............................................................................................. 193
20.1.8. Using Ant for schema validation ......................................................................... 193
21. Example: Parent/Child .......................................................................................................... 194
21.1. A note about collections ................................................................................................ 194
21.2. Bidirectional one-to-many ............................................................................................. 194
21.3. Cascading lifecycle ....................................................................................................... 195
21.4. Cascades and unsaved-value ......................................................................................... 196
21.5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 197
22. Example: Weblog Application ............................................................................................... 198
22.1. Persistent Classes ......................................................................................................... 198
22.2. Hibernate Mappings ..................................................................................................... 199
22.3. Hibernate Code ............................................................................................................ 200
23. Example: Various Mappings ................................................................................................. 204
23.1. Employer/Employee ..................................................................................................... 204
23.2. Author/Work ................................................................................................................ 205
23.3. Customer/Order/Product ............................................................................................... 207
23.4. Miscellaneous example mappings .................................................................................. 209
23.4.1. "Typed" one-to-one association .......................................................................... 209
23.4.2. Composite key example ..................................................................................... 209
23.4.3. Many-to-many with shared composite key attribute ............................................. 211
23.4.4. Content based discrimination .............................................................................. 212
23.4.5. Associations on alternate keys ............................................................................ 212
24. Best Practices ........................................................................................................................ 214
Hibernate 3.1.1 vii

Preface
Working with object-oriented software and a relational database can be cumbersome and time consuming in
today's enterprise environments. Hibernate is an object/relational mapping tool for Java environments. The term
object/relational mapping (ORM) refers to the technique of mapping a data representation from an object model
to a relational data model with a SQL-based schema.
Hibernate not only takes care of the mapping from Java classes to database tables (and from Java data types to
SQL data types), but also provides data query and retrieval facilities and can significantly reduce development
time otherwise spent with manual data handling in SQL and JDBC.
Hibernates goal is to relieve the developer from 95 percent of common data persistence related programming
tasks. Hibernate may not be the best solution for data-centric applications that only use stored-procedures to
implement the business logic in the database, it is most useful with object-oriented domain models and business
logic in the Java-based middle-tier. However, Hibernate can certainly help you to remove or encapsulate
vendor-specific SQL code and will help with the common task of result set translation from a tabular represent-
ation to a graph of objects.
If you are new to Hibernate and Object/Relational Mapping or even Java, please follow these steps:
1. Read Chapter 1, Introduction to Hibernate for a tutorial with step-by-step instructions. The source code
for the tutorial is included in the distribution in the doc/reference/tutorial/ directory.
2. Read Chapter 2, Architecture to understand the environments where Hibernate can be used.
3. Have a look at the eg/ directory in the Hibernate distribution, it contains a simple standalone application.
Copy your JDBC driver to the lib/ directory and edit etc/hibernate.properties, specifying correct val-
ues for your database. From a command prompt in the distribution directory, type ant eg (using Ant), or
under Windows, type build eg.
4. Use this reference documentation as your primary source of information. Consider reading Hibernate in
Action (http://www.manning.com/bauer) if you need more help with application design or if you prefer a
step-by-step tutorial. Also visit http://caveatemptor.hibernate.org and download the example application
for Hibernate in Action.
5. FAQs are answered on the Hibernate website.
6. Third party demos, examples, and tutorials are linked on the Hibernate website.
7. The Community Area on the Hibernate website is a good resource for design patterns and various integra-
tion solutions (Tomcat, JBoss AS, Struts, EJB, etc.).
If you have questions, use the user forum linked on the Hibernate website. We also provide a JIRA issue track-
ings system for bug reports and feature requests. If you are interested in the development of Hibernate, join the
developer mailing list. If you are interested in translating this documentation into your language, contact us on
the developer mailing list.
Commercial development support, production support, and training for Hibernate is available through JBoss
Inc. (see http://www.hibernate.org/SupportTraining/). Hibernate is a Professional Open Source project and a
critical component of the JBoss Enterprise Middleware System (JEMS) suite of products.
Hibernate 3.1.1 viii

Chapter 1. Introduction to Hibernate
1.1. Preface
This chapter is an introductory tutorial for new users of Hibernate. We start with a simple command line applic-
ation using an in-memory database and develop it in easy to understand steps.
This tutorial is intended for new users of Hibernate but requires Java and SQL knowledge. It is based on a tu-
torial by Michael Gloegl, the third-party libraries we name are for JDK 1.4 and 5.0. You might need others for
JDK 1.3.
The source code for the tutorial is included in the distribution in the doc/reference/tutorial/ directory.
1.2. Part 1 - The first Hibernate Application

First, we'll create a simple console-based Hibernate application. We use an Java database (HSQL DB), so we
do not have to install any database server.
Let's assume we need a small database application that can store events we want to attend, and information
about the hosts of these events.
The first thing we do, is set up our development directory and put all the Java libraries we need into it. Down-
load the Hibernate distribution from the Hibernate website. Extract the package and place all required libraries
found in /lib into into the /lib directory of your new development working directory. It should look like this:
.
+lib
antlr.jar
cglib.jar
asm.jar
asm-attrs.jars
commons-collections.jar
commons-logging.jar
hibernate3.jar
jta.jar
dom4j.jar
log4j.jar
This is the minimum set of required libraries (note that we also copied hibernate3.jar, the main archive) for Hi-
bernate at the time of writing. The Hibernate release you are using might require more or less libraries. See the
README.txt file in the lib/ directory of the Hibernate distribution for more information about required and op-
tional third-party libraries. (Actually, Log4j is not required but preferred by many developers.)
Next we create a class that represents the event we want to store in database.
1.2.1. The first class
Our first persistent class is a simple JavaBean class with some properties:
package events;
import java.util.Date;
public class Event {
Hibernate 3.1.1 1
Introduction to Hibernate
private Long id;
private String title;

private Date date;
public Event() {}
public Long getId() {

return id;
}
private void setId(Long id) {

this.id = id;
}
public Date getDate() {

return date;
}
public void setDate(Date date) {

this.date = date;
}
public String getTitle() {

return title;
}
public void setTitle(String title) {

this.title = title;
}
}
You can see that this class uses standard JavaBean naming conventions for property getter and setter methods,
as well as private visibility for the fields. This is a recommended design - but not required. Hibernate can also
access fields directly, the benefit of accessor methods is robustness for refactoring. The no-argument construct-
or is required to instantiate an object of this class through reflection.
The id property holds a unique identifier value for a particular event. All persistent entity classes (there are less
important dependent classes as well) will need such an identifier property if we want to use the full feature set
of Hibernate. In fact, most applications (esp. web applications) need to distinguish objects by identifier, so you
should consider this a feature rather than a limitation. However, we usually don't manipulate the identity of an
object, hence the setter method should be private. Only Hibernate will assign identifiers when an object is
saved. You can see that Hibernate can access public, private, and protected accessor methods, as well as
(public, private, protected) fields directly. The choice is up to you and you can match it to fit your application
design.
The no-argument constructor is a requirement for all persistent classes; Hibernate has to create objects for you,
using Java Reflection. The constructor can be private, however, package visibility is required for runtime proxy
generation and efficient data retrieval without bytecode instrumentation.
Place this Java source file in a directory called src in the development folder, and in its correct package. The
directory should now look like this:
.
+lib
<Hibernate and third-party libraries>
+src
+events
Event.java
In the next step, we tell Hibernate about this persistent class.
Hibernate 3.1.1 2
1.2.2. The mapping file
Hibernate needs to know how to load and store objects of the persistent class. This is where the Hibernate map-
ping file comes into play. The mapping file tells Hibernate what table in the database it has to access, and what
columns in that table it should use.
The basic structure of a mapping file looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-mapping>
[...]
</hibernate-mapping>
Note that the Hibernate DTD is very sophisticated. You can use it for auto-completion of XML mapping ele-
ments and attributes in your editor or IDE. You also should open up the DTD file in your text editor - it's the
easiest way to get an overview of all elements and attributes and to see the defaults, as well as some comments.
Note that Hibernate will not load the DTD file from the web, but first look it up from the classpath of the ap-
plication. The DTD file is included in hibernate3.jar as well as in the src/ directory of the Hibernate distri-
bution.
We will omit the DTD declaration in future examples to shorten the code. It is of course not optional.
Between the two hibernate-mapping tags, include a class element. All persistent entity classes (again, there
might be dependent classes later on, which are not first-class entities) need such a mapping, to a table in the
SQL database:
<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="events.Event" table="EVENTS">
</class>
So far we told Hibernate how to persist and load object of class Event to the table EVENTS, each instance repres-
ented by a row in that table. Now we continue with a mapping of the unique identifier property to the tables
primary key. In addition, as we don't want to care about handling this identifier, we configure Hibernate's iden-
tifier generation strategy for a surrogate primary key column:
<hibernate-mapping>

<id name="id" column="EVENT_ID">
<generator class="native"/>
</id>
</class>
The id element is the declaration of the identifer property, name="id" declares the name of the Java property -
Hibernate will use the getter and setter methods to access the property. The column attribute tells Hibernate
which column of the EVENTS table we use for this primary key. The nested generator element specifies the
identifier generation strategy, in this case we used native, which picks the best strategy depending on the con-
figured database (dialect). Hibernate supports database generated, globally unique, as well as application as-
signed identifiers (or any strategy you have written an extension for).
Hibernate 3.1.1 3
Finally we include declarations for the persistent properties of the class in the mapping file. By default, no
properties of the class are considered persistent:
<hibernate-mapping>

<id name="id" column="EVENT_ID">
</id>
<property name="date" type="timestamp" column="EVENT_DATE"/>
<property name="title"/>
</class>
Just as with the id element, the name attribute of the property element tells Hibernate which getter and setter
methods to use. So, in this case, Hibernate will look for getDate()/setDate(), as well as get-
Title()/setTitle().
Why does the date property mapping include the column attribute, but the title doesn't? Without the column
attribute Hibernate by default uses the property name as the column name. This works fine for title. However,
date is a reserved keyword in most database, so we better map it to a different name.
The next interesting thing is that the title mapping also lacks a type attribute. The types we declare and use in
the mapping files are not, as you might expect, Java data types. They are also not SQL database types. These
types are so called Hibernate mapping types, converters which can translate from Java to SQL data types and
vice versa. Again, Hibernate will try to determine the correct conversion and mapping type itself if the type at-
tribute is not present in the mapping. In some cases this automatic detection (using Reflection on the Java class)
might not have the default you expect or need. This is the case with the date property. Hibernate can't know if
the property (which is of java.util.Date) should map to a SQL date, timestamp, or time column. We pre-
serve full date and time information by mapping the property with a timestamp converter.
This mapping file should be saved as Event.hbm.xml, right in the directory next to the Event Java class source
file. The naming of mapping files can be arbitrary, however the hbm.xml suffix is a convention in the Hibernate
developer community. The directory structure should now look like this:
.
+lib
+src
+events
Event.java
Event.hbm.xml
We continue with the main configuration of Hibernate.
1.2.3. Hibernate configuration
We now have a persistent class and its mapping file in place. It is time to configure Hibernate. Before we do
this, we will need a database. HSQL DB, a java-based SQL DBMS, can be downloaded from the HSQL DB
website. Actually, you only need the hsqldb.jar from this download. Place this file in the lib/ directory of the
development folder.
Create a directory called data in the root of the development directory - this is where HSQL DB will store its
data files. Now start the database by running java -classpath lib/hsqldb.jar org.hsqldb.Server in this
data directory. You can see it start up and bind to a TCP/IP socket, this is where our application will connect
Hibernate 3.1.1 4
later. If you want to start with a fresh database during this tutorial, shutdown HSQL DB (press CTRL + C in the
window), delete all files in the data/ directory, and start HSQL DB again.
Hibernate is the layer in your application which connects to this database, so it needs connection information.
The connections are made through a JDBC connection pool, which we also have to configure. The Hibernate
distribution contains several open source JDBC connection pooling tools, but will use the Hibernate built-in
connection pool for this tutorial. Note that you have to copy the required library into your classpath and use dif-
ferent connection pooling settings if you want to use a production-quality third party JDBC pooling software.
For Hibernate's configuration, we can use a simple hibernate.properties file, a slightly more sophisticated
hibernate.cfg.xml file, or even complete programmatic setup. Most users prefer the XML configuration file:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>

<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-configuration>
<session-factory>


<property name="connection.driver_class">org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver</property>
<property name="connection.url">jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost</property>
<property name="connection.username">sa</property>
<property name="connection.password"></property>


<property name="connection.pool_size">1</property>


<property name="dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect</property>


<property name="current_session_context_class">thread</property>


<property name="cache.provider_class">org.hibernate.cache.NoCacheProvider</property>


<property name="show_sql">true</property>


<property name="hbm2ddl.auto">create</property>
<mapping resource="events/Event.hbm.xml"/>
</session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>
Note that this XML configuration uses a different DTD. We configure Hibernate's SessionFactory - a global
factory responsible for a particular database. If you have several databases, use several <session-factory>
configurations, usually in several configuration files (for easier startup).
The first four property elements contain the necessary configuration for the JDBC connection. The dialect
property element specifies the particular SQL variant Hibernate generates. Hibernate's automatic session man-
agement for persistence contexts will come in handy as you will soon see. The hbm2ddl.auto option turns on
automatic generation of database schemas - directly into the database. This can of course also be turned off (by
removing the config option) or redirected to a file with the help of the SchemaExport Ant task. Finally, we add
the mapping file(s) for persistent classes to the configuration.
Copy this file into the source directory, so it will end up in the root of the classpath. Hibernate automatically
Hibernate 3.1.1 5
looks for a file called hibernate.cfg.xml in the root of the classpath, on startup.
1.2.4. Building with Ant
We'll now build the tutorial with Ant. You will need to have Ant installed - get it from the Ant download page
[http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi]. How to install Ant will not be covered here. Please refer to the Ant
manual [http://ant.apache.org/manual/index.html]. After you have installed Ant, we can start to create the build-
file. It will be called build.xml and placed directly in the development directory.
A basic build file looks like this:
<project name="hibernate-tutorial" default="compile">
<property name="sourcedir" value="${basedir}/src"/>

<property name="targetdir" value="${basedir}/bin"/>
<property name="librarydir" value="${basedir}/lib"/>
<path id="libraries">
<fileset dir="${librarydir}">
<include name="*.jar"/>
</fileset>
</path>
<target name="clean">
<delete dir="${targetdir}"/>
<mkdir dir="${targetdir}"/>
</target>
<target name="compile" depends="clean, copy-resources">

<javac srcdir="${sourcedir}"
destdir="${targetdir}"
classpathref="libraries"/>
</target>
<target name="copy-resources">
<copy todir="${targetdir}">
<fileset dir="${sourcedir}">
<exclude name="**/*.java"/>
</fileset>
</copy>
</target>
</project>
This will tell Ant to add all files in the lib directory ending with .jar to the classpath used for compilation. It
will also copy all non-Java source files to the target directory, e.g. configuration and Hibernate mapping files. If
you now run Ant, you should get this output:
C:\hibernateTutorial\>ant
Buildfile: build.xml
copy-resources:
[copy] Copying 2 files to C:\hibernateTutorial\bin
compile:
[javac] Compiling 1 source file to C:\hibernateTutorial\bin
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 1 second
1.2.5. Startup and helpers
Hibernate 3.1.1 6
It's time to load and store some Event objects, but first we have to complete the setup with some infrastructure
code. We have to startup Hibernate. This startup includes building a global SessionFactory object and to store
it somewhere for easy access in application code. A SessionFactory can open up new Session's. A Session
represents a single-threaded unit of work, the SessionFactory is a thread-safe global object, instantiated once.
We'll create a HibernateUtil helper class which takes care of startup and makes accessing a SessionFactory
convenient. Let's have a look at the implementation:
package util;
import org.hibernate.*;
import org.hibernate.cfg.*;
public class HibernateUtil {
private static final SessionFactory sessionFactory;
static {
try {
// Create the SessionFactory from hibernate.cfg.xml
sessionFactory = new Configuration().configure().buildSessionFactory();
} catch (Throwable ex) {
// Make sure you log the exception, as it might be swallowed
System.err.println("Initial SessionFactory creation failed." + ex);
throw new ExceptionInInitializerError(ex);
}
}
public static SessionFactory getSessionFactory() {

return sessionFactory;
}
This class does not only produce the global SessionFactory in its static initializer (called once by the JVM
when the class is loaded), but also hides the fact that it uses a static singleton. It might as well lookup the Ses-
sionFactory from JNDI in an application server.
If you give the SessionFactory a name in your configuration file, Hibernate will in fact try to bind it to JNDI
after it has been built. To avoid this code completely you could also use JMX deployment and let the JMX-
capable container instantiate and bind a HibernateService to JNDI. These advanced options are discussed in
the Hibernate reference documentation.
Place HibernateUtil.java in the development source directory, in a package next to events:
.
+lib
+src
+events
Event.java
Event.hbm.xml
+util
HibernateUtil.java
hibernate.cfg.xml
+data
build.xml
This should again compile without problems. We finally need to configure a logging system - Hibernate uses
commons logging and leaves you the choice between Log4j and JDK 1.4 logging. Most developers prefer
Log4j: copy log4j.properties from the Hibernate distribution (it's in the etc/ directory) to your src direct-
ory, next to hibernate.cfg.xml. Have a look at the example configuration and change the settings if you like
Hibernate 3.1.1 7
to have more verbose output. By default, only Hibernate startup message are shown on stdout.
The tutorial infrastructure is complete - and we are ready to do some real work with Hibernate.
1.2.6. Loading and storing objects
Finally, we can use Hibernate to load and store objects. We write an EventManager class with a main() meth-
od:
package events;
import org.hibernate.Session;
import util.HibernateUtil;
public class EventManager {
public static void main(String[] args) {

EventManager mgr = new EventManager();
if (args[0].equals("store")) {
mgr.createAndStoreEvent("My Event", new Date());
}
HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().close();
}
private void createAndStoreEvent(String title, Date theDate) {
Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().getCurrentSession();
session.beginTransaction();
Event theEvent = new Event();

theEvent.setTitle(title);
theEvent.setDate(theDate);
session.save(theEvent);
session.getTransaction().commit();
}
We create a new Event object, and hand it over to Hibernate. Hibernate now takes care of the SQL and ex-
ecutes INSERTs on the database. Let's have a look at the Session and Transaction-handling code before we run
this.
A Session is a single unit of work. For now we'll keep things simple and assume a one-to-one granularity
between a Hibernate Session and a database transaction. To shield our code from the actual underlying transac-
tion system (in this case plain JDBC, but it could also run with JTA) we use the Transaction API that is avail-
able on the Hibernate Session.
What does sessionFactory.getCurrentSession() do? First, you can call it as many times and anywhere you
like, once you get hold of your SessionFactory (easy thanks to HibernateUtil). The getCurrentSession()
method always returns the "current" unit of work. Remember that we switched the configuration option for this
mechanism to "thread" in hibernate.cfg.xml? Hence, the scope of the current unit of work is the current Java
thread that executes our application. However, this is not the full truth. A Session begins when it is first
needed, when the first call to getCurrentSession() is made. It is then bound by Hibernate to the current
thread. When the transaction ends, either committed or rolled back, Hibernate also unbinds the Session from
the thread and closes it for you. If you call getCurrentSession() again, you get a new Session and can start a
Hibernate 3.1.1 8
new unit of work. This thread-bound programming model is the most popular way of using Hibernate.
Have a look at Chapter 11, Transactions And Concurrency for more information about transaction handling and
demarcation. We also skipped any error handling and rollback in the previous example.
To run this first routine we have to add a callable target to the Ant build file:
<target name="run" depends="compile">

<java fork="true" classname="events.EventManager" classpathref="libraries">
<classpath path="${targetdir}"/>
<arg value="${action}"/>
</java>
</target>
The value of the action argument is set on the command line when calling the target:
C:\hibernateTutorial\>ant run -Daction=store
You should see, after compilation, Hibernate starting up and, depending on your configuration, lots of log out-
put. At the end you will find the following line:
[java] Hibernate: insert into EVENTS (EVENT_DATE, title, EVENT_ID) values (?, ?, ?)
This is the INSERT executed by Hibernate, the question marks represent JDBC bind parameters. To see the val-
ues bound as arguments, or to reduce the verbosity of the log, check your log4j.properties.
Now we'd like to list stored events as well, so we add an option to the main method:
if (args[0].equals("store")) {
mgr.createAndStoreEvent("My Event", new Date());
}
else if (args[0].equals("list")) {
List events = mgr.listEvents();
for (int i = 0; i < events.size(); i++) {
Event theEvent = (Event) events.get(i);
System.out.println("Event: " + theEvent.getTitle() +
" Time: " + theEvent.getDate());
}
}
We also add a new listEvents() method:
private List listEvents() {
List result = session.createQuery("from Event").list();
return result;
}
What we do here is use an HQL (Hibernate Query Language) query to load all existing Event objects from the
database. Hibernate will generate the appropriate SQL, send it to the database and populate Event objects with
the data. You can create more complex queries with HQL, of course.
Now, to execute and test all of this, follow these steps:
Hibernate 3.1.1 9
• Run ant run -Daction=store to store something into the database and, of course, to generate the database
schema before through hbm2ddl.
• Now disable hbm2ddl by commenting out the property in your hibernate.cfg.xml file. Usually you only
leave it turned on in continous unit testing, but another run of hbm2ddl would drop everything you have
stored - the create configuration setting actually translates into "drop all tables from the schema, then re-
create all tables, when the SessionFactory is build".
If you now call Ant with -Daction=list, you should see the events you have stored so far. You can of course
also call the store action a few times more.
Note: Most new Hibernate users fail at this point and we see questions about Table not found error messages
regularly. However, if you follow the steps outlined above you will not have this problem, as hbm2ddl creates
the database schema on the first run, and subsequent application restarts will use this schema. If you change the
mapping and/or database schema, you have to re-enable hbm2ddl once again.
1.3. Part 2 - Mapping associations

We mapped a persistent entity class to a table. Let's build on this and add some class associations. First we'll
add people to our application, and store a list of events they participate in.
1.3.1. Mapping the Person class
The first cut of the Person class is simple:
package events;
public class Person {
private Long id;

private int age;
private String firstname;
private String lastname;
public Person() {}
// Accessor methods for all properties, private setter for 'id'
Create a new mapping file called Person.hbm.xml (don't forget the DTD reference at the top):
<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="events.Person" table="PERSON">

<id name="id" column="PERSON_ID">
</id>
<property name="age"/>
<property name="firstname"/>
<property name="lastname"/>
</class>
Finally, add the new mapping to Hibernate's configuration:
<mapping resource="events/Event.hbm.xml"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 10
<mapping resource="events/Person.hbm.xml"/>
We'll now create an association between these two entities. Obviously, persons can participate in events, and
events have participants. The design questions we have to deal with are: directionality, multiplicity, and collec-
tion behavior.
1.3.2. A unidirectional Set-based association
We'll add a collection of events to the Person class. That way we can easily navigate to the events for a particu-
lar person, without executing an explicit query - by calling aPerson.getEvents(). We use a Java collection, a
Set, because the collection will not contain duplicate elements and the ordering is not relevant for us.
We need a unidirectional, many-valued associations, implemented with a Set. Let's write the code for this in
the Java classes and then map it:
private Set events = new HashSet();
public Set getEvents() {

return events;
}
public void setEvents(Set events) {

this.events = events;
}
}
Before we map this association, think about the other side. Clearly, we could just keep this unidirectional. Or,
we could create another collection on the Event, if we want to be able to navigate it bi-directional, i.e. an-
Event.getParticipants(). This is not necessary, from a functional perspective. You could always execute an
explicit query to retrieve the participants for a particular event. This is a design choice left to you, but what is
clear from this discussion is the multiplicity of the association: "many" valued on both sides, we call this a
many-to-many association. Hence, we use Hibernate's many-to-many mapping:
<class name="events.Person" table="PERSON">

</id>
<property name="age"/>
<property name="firstname"/>
<property name="lastname"/>
<set name="events" table="PERSON_EVENT">

<key column="PERSON_ID"/>
<many-to-many column="EVENT_ID" class="events.Event"/>
</set>
</class>
Hibernate supports all kinds of collection mappings, a <set> being most common. For a many-to-many associ-
ation (or n:m entity relationship), an association table is needed. Each row in this table represents a link
between a person and an event. The table name is configured with the table attribute of the set element. The
identifier column name in the association, for the person's side, is defined with the <key> element, the column
name for the event's side with the column attribute of the <many-to-many>. You also have to tell Hibernate the
class of the objects in your collection (correct: the class on the other side of the collection of references).
The database schema for this mapping is therefore:
Hibernate 3.1.1 11
_____________ __________________
| | | | _____________
| EVENTS | | PERSON_EVENT | | |
|_____________| |__________________| | PERSON |
| | | | |_____________|
| *EVENT_ID | <--> | *EVENT_ID | | |
| EVENT_DATE | | *PERSON_ID | <--> | *PERSON_ID |
| TITLE | |__________________| | AGE |
|_____________| | FIRSTNAME |
| LASTNAME |
|_____________|
1.3.3. Working the association
Let's bring some people and events together in a new method in EventManager:
private void addPersonToEvent(Long personId, Long eventId) {

Person aPerson = (Person) session.load(Person.class, personId);

Event anEvent = (Event) session.load(Event.class, eventId);
aPerson.getEvents().add(anEvent);
}
After loading a Person and an Event, simply modify the collection using the normal collection methods. As
you can see, there is no explicit call to update() or save(), Hibernate automatically detects that the collection
has been modified and needs to be updated. This is called automatic dirty checking, and you can also try it by
modifying the name or the date property of any of your objects. As long as they are in persistent state, that is,
bound to a particular Hibernate Session (i.e. they have been just loaded or saved in a unit of work), Hibernate
monitors any changes and executes SQL in a write-behind fashion. The process of synchronizing the memory
state with the database, usually only at the end of a unit of work, is called flushing. In our code, the unit of work
ends with a commit (or rollback) of the database transaction - as defined by the thread configuration option for
the CurrentSessionContext class.
You might of course load person and event in different units of work. Or you modify an object outside of a
Session, when it is not in persistent state (if it was persistent before, we call this state detached). You can even
modify a collection when it is detached:
private void addPersonToEvent(Long personId, Long eventId) {

Person aPerson = (Person) session

.createQuery("select p from Person p left join fetch p.events where p.id = :pid")
.setParameter("pid", personId)
.uniqueResult(); // Eager fetch the collection so we can use it detached
Event anEvent = (Event) session.load(Event.class, eventId);
// End of first unit of work
aPerson.getEvents().add(anEvent); // aPerson (and its collection) is detached
Hibernate 3.1.1 12
// Begin second unit of work
Session session2 = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().getCurrentSession();

session2.beginTransaction();
session2.update(aPerson); // Reattachment of aPerson
session2.getTransaction().commit();
}
The call to update makes a detached object persistent again, you could say it binds it to a new unit of work, so
any modifications you made to it while detached can be saved to the database. This includes any modifications
(additions/deletions) you made to a collection of that entity object.
Well, this is not much use in our current situation, but it's an important concept you can design into your own
application. For now, complete this exercise by adding a new action to the EventManager's main method and
call it from the command line. If you need the identifiers of a person and an event - the save() method returns
it (you might have to modify some of the previous methods to return that identifier):
else if (args[0].equals("addpersontoevent")) {
Long eventId = mgr.createAndStoreEvent("My Event", new Date());
Long personId = mgr.createAndStorePerson("Foo", "Bar");
mgr.addPersonToEvent(personId, eventId);
System.out.println("Added person " + personId + " to event " + eventId);
This was an example of an association between two equally important classes, two entities. As mentioned earli-
er, there are other classes and types in a typical model, usually "less important". Some you have already seen,
like an int or a String. We call these classes value types, and their instances depend on a particular entity. In-
stances of these types don't have their own identity, nor are they shared between entities (two persons don't ref-
erence the same firstname object, even if they have the same first name). Of course, value types can not only
be found in the JDK (in fact, in a Hibernate application all JDK classes are considered value types), but you can
also write dependent classes yourself, Address or MonetaryAmount, for example.
You can also design a collection of value types. This is conceptually very different from a collection of refer-
ences to other entities, but looks almost the same in Java.
1.3.4. Collection of values
We add a collection of value typed objects to the Person entity. We want to store email addresses, so the type
we use is String, and the collection is again a Set:
private Set emailAddresses = new HashSet();
public Set getEmailAddresses() {

return emailAddresses;
}
public void setEmailAddresses(Set emailAddresses) {

this.emailAddresses = emailAddresses;
}
The mapping of this Set:
<set name="emailAddresses" table="PERSON_EMAIL_ADDR">

<key column="PERSON_ID"/>
<element type="string" column="EMAIL_ADDR"/>
</set>
Hibernate 3.1.1 13
The difference compared with the earlier mapping is the element part, which tells Hibernate that the collection
does not contain references to another entity, but a collection of elements of type String (the lowercase name
tells you it's a Hibernate mapping type/converter). Once again, the table attribute of the set element determ-
ines the table name for the collection. The key element defines the foreign-key column name in the collection
table. The column attribute in the element element defines the column name where the String values will actu-
ally be stored.
Have a look at the updated schema:
_____________ __________________
| | | | _____________
| EVENTS | | PERSON_EVENT | | | ___________________
|_____________| |__________________| | PERSON | | |
| | | | |_____________| | PERSON_EMAIL_ADDR |
| *EVENT_ID | <--> | *EVENT_ID | | | |___________________|
| EVENT_DATE | | *PERSON_ID | <--> | *PERSON_ID | <--> | *PERSON_ID |
| TITLE | |__________________| | AGE | | *EMAIL_ADDR |
|_____________| | FIRSTNAME | |___________________|
| LASTNAME |
|_____________|
You can see that the primary key of the collection table is in fact a composite key, using both columns. This
also implies that there can't be duplicate email addresses per person, which is exactly the semantics we need for
a set in Java.
You can now try and add elements to this collection, just like we did before by linking persons and events. It's
the same code in Java:
private void addEmailToPerson(Long personId, String emailAddress) {

Person aPerson = (Person) session.load(Person.class, personId);
// The getEmailAddresses() might trigger a lazy load of the collection

aPerson.getEmailAddresses().add(emailAddress);
}
This time we didnt' use a fetch query to initialize the collection. Hence, the call to its getter method will trigger
an additional select to initialize it, so we can add an element to it. Monitor the SQL log and try to optimize this
with an eager fetch.
1.3.5. Bi-directional associations
Next we are going to map a bi-directional association - making the association between person and event work
from both sides in Java. Of course, the database schema doesn't change, we still have many-to-many multipli-
city. A relational database is more flexible than a network programming language, so it doesn't need anything
like a navigation direction - data can be viewed and retrieved in any possible way.
First, add a collection of participants to the Event Event class:
private Set participants = new HashSet();
public Set getParticipants() {

return participants;
Hibernate 3.1.1 14
public void setParticipants(Set participants) {

this.participants = participants;
}
Now map this side of the association too, in Event.hbm.xml.
<set name="participants" table="PERSON_EVENT" inverse="true">

<key column="EVENT_ID"/>
<many-to-many column="PERSON_ID" class="events.Person"/>
</set>
As you see, these are normal set mappings in both mapping documents. Notice that the column names in key
and many-to-many are swapped in both mapping documents. The most important addition here is the in-
verse="true" attribute in the set element of the Event's collection mapping.
What this means is that Hibernate should take the other side - the Person class - when it needs to find out in-
formation about the link between the two. This will be a lot easier to understand once you see how the bi-
directional link between our two entities is created .
1.3.6. Working bi-directional links
First, keep in mind that Hibernate does not affect normal Java semantics. How did we create a link between a
Person and an Event in the unidirectional example? We added an instance of Event to the collection of event
references, of an instance of Person. So, obviously, if we want to make this link working bi-directional, we
have to do the same on the other side - adding a Person reference to the collection in an Event. This "setting the
link on both sides" is absolutely necessary and you should never forget doing it.
Many developers program defensive and create a link management methods to correctly set both sides, e.g. in
Person:
protected Set getEvents() {

return events;
}
protected void setEvents(Set events) {

this.events = events;
}
public void addToEvent(Event event) {

this.getEvents().add(event);
event.getParticipants().add(this);
}
public void removeFromEvent(Event event) {

this.getEvents().remove(event);
event.getParticipants().remove(this);
}
Notice that the get and set methods for the collection are now protected - this allows classes in the same pack-
age and subclasses to still access the methods, but prevents everybody else from messing with the collections
directly (well, almost). You should probably do the same with the collection on the other side.
What about the inverse mapping attribute? For you, and for Java, a bi-directional link is simply a matter of set-
ting the references on both sides correctly. Hibernate however doesn't have enough information to correctly ar-
range SQL INSERT and UPDATE statements (to avoid constraint violations), and needs some help to handle bi-
directional associations properly. Making one side of the association inverse tells Hibernate to basically ignore
Hibernate 3.1.1 15
it, to consider it a mirror of the other side. That's all that is necessary for Hibernate to work out all of the issues
when transformation a directional navigation model to a SQL database schema. The rules you have to remem-
ber are straightforward: All bi-directional associations need one side as inverse. In a one-to-many association
it has to be the many-side, in many-to-many association you can pick either side, there is no difference.
Let's turn this into a small web application.
1.4. Part 3 - The EventManager web application

A Hibernate web application uses Session and Transaction almost like a standalone application. However,
some common patterns are useful. We now write an EventManagerServlet. This servlet can list all events
stored in the database, and it provides an HTML form to enter new events.
1.4.1. Writing the basic servlet
Create a new class in your source directory, in the events package:
package events;
// Imports
public class EventManagerServlet extends HttpServlet {
private final SimpleDateFormat dateFormatter =

new SimpleDateFormat("dd.MM.yyyy");
// Servlet code
}
The dateFormatter is a tool we'll need later to convert Date objects from and to strings. It makes sense to only
have one formatter as a member of the servlet.
The servlet handles HTTP GET requests only, hence, the method we implement is doGet():
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request,

HttpServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException {
try {
// Begin unit of work
HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory()
.getCurrentSession().beginTransaction();
// Process request and render page...
// End unit of work

.getCurrentSession().getTransaction().commit();
} catch (Exception ex) {

.getCurrentSession().getTransaction().rollback();
throw new ServletException(ex);
}
The pattern we are applying here is called session-per-request. When a request hits the servlet, a new Hibernate
Session is opened through the first call to getCurrentSession() on the SessionFactory. Then a database
transaction is started—all data access as to occur inside a transaction, no matter if data is read or written (we
Hibernate 3.1.1 16
don't use the auto-commit mode in applications).
Next, the possible actions of the request are processed and the response HTML is rendered. We'll get to that
part soon.
Finally, the unit of work ends when processing and rendering is complete. If any problem occured during pro-
cessing or rendering, an exception will be thrown and the database transaction rolled back. This completes the
session-per-request pattern. Instead of the transaction demarcation code in every servlet you could also
write a servlet filter. See the Hibernate website and Wiki for more information about this pattern, called Open
Session in View—you'll need it as soon as you consider rendering your view in JSP, not in a servlet.
1.4.2. Processing and rendering
Let's implement the processing of the request and rendering of the page.
// Write HTML header

PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
out.println("<html><head><title>Event Manager</title></head><body>");
// Handle actions
if ( "store".equals(request.getParameter("action")) ) {
String eventTitle = request.getParameter("eventTitle");

String eventDate = request.getParameter("eventDate");
if ( "".equals(eventTitle) || "".equals(eventDate) ) {
out.println("<b><i>Please enter event title and date.</i></b>");
} else {
createAndStoreEvent(eventTitle, dateFormatter.parse(eventDate));
out.println("<b><i>Added event.</i></b>");
}
}
// Print page
printEventForm(out);
listEvents(out);
// Write HTML footer

out.println("</body></html>");
out.flush();
out.close();
Granted, this coding style with a mix of Java and HTML would not scale in a more complex application—keep
in mind that we are only illustrating basic Hibernate concepts in this tutorial. The code prints an HTML header
and a footer. Inside this page, an HTML form for event entry and a list of all events in the database are printed.
The first method is trivial and only outputs HTML:
private void printEventForm(PrintWriter out) {

out.println("<h2>Add new event:</h2>");
out.println("<form>");
out.println("Title: <input name='eventTitle' length='50'/><br/>");
out.println("Date (e.g. 24.12.2009): <input name='eventDate' length='10'/><br/>");
out.println("<input type='submit' name='action' value='store'/>");
out.println("</form>");
}
The listEvents() method uses the Hibernate Session bound to the current thread to execute a query:
private void listEvents(PrintWriter out) {

List result = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory()
.getCurrentSession().createCriteria(Event.class).list();
if (result.size() > 0) {
out.println("<h2>Events in database:</h2>");
Hibernate 3.1.1 17
out.println("<table border='1'>");
out.println("<tr>");
out.println("<th>Event title</th>");
out.println("<th>Event date</th>");
out.println("</tr>");
for (Iterator it = result.iterator(); it.hasNext();) {
Event event = (Event) it.next();
out.println("<tr>");
out.println("<td>" + event.getTitle() + "</td>");
out.println("<td>" + dateFormatter.format(event.getDate()) + "</td>");
out.println("</tr>");
}
out.println("</table>");
}
}
Finally, the store action is dispatched to the createAndStoreEvent() method, which also uses the Session of
the current thread:
protected void createAndStoreEvent(String title, Date theDate) {

Event theEvent = new Event();
theEvent.setTitle(title);
theEvent.setDate(theDate);
.getCurrentSession().save(theEvent);
}
That's it, the servlet is complete. A request to the servlet will be processed in a single Session and Transac-
tion. As earlier in the standalone application, Hibernate can automatically bind these ojects to the current
thread of execution. This gives you the freedom to layer your code and access the SessionFactory in any way
you like. Usually you'd use a more sophisticated design and move the data access code into data access objects
(the DAO pattern). See the Hibernate Wiki for more examples.
1.4.3. Deploying and testing
To deploy this application you have to create a web archive, a WAR. Add the following Ant target to your
build.xml:
<target name="war" depends="compile">

<war destfile="hibernate-tutorial.war" webxml="web.xml">
<lib dir="${librarydir}">
<exclude name="jsdk*.jar"/>
</lib>
<classes dir="${targetdir}"/>
</war>
</target>
This target creates a file called hibernate-tutorial.war in your project directory. It packages all libraries and
the web.xml descriptor, which is expected in the base directory of your project:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<web-app version="2.4"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xs
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Event Manager</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>events.EventManagerServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
Hibernate 3.1.1 18
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Event Manager</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/eventmanager</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>
Before you compile and deploy the web application, note that an additional library is required: jsdk.jar. This
is the Java servlet development kit, if you don't have this library already, get it from the Sun website and copy it
to your library directory. However, it will be only used for compliation and excluded from the WAR package.
To build and deploy call ant war in your project directory and copy the hibernate-tutorial.war file into
your Tomcat webapp directory. If you don't have Tomcat installed, download it and follow the installation in-
structions. You don't have to change any Tomcat configuration to deploy this application though.
Once deployed and Tomcat is running, access the application at ht-

tp://localhost:8080/hibernate-tutorial/eventmanager. Make sure you watch the Tomcat log to see Hi-
bernate initialize when the first request hits your servlet (the static initializer in HibernateUtil is called) and to
get the detailed output if any exceptions occurs.
1.5. Summary
This tutorial covered the basics of writing a simple standalone Hibernate application and a small web applica-
tion.
If you already feel confident with Hibernate, continue browsing through the reference documentation table of
contents for topics you find interesting - most asked are transactional processing (Chapter 11, Transactions And
Concurrency), fetch performance (Chapter 19, Improving performance), or the usage of the API (Chapter 10,
Working with objects) and the query features (Section 10.4, “Querying”).
Don't forget to check the Hibernate website for more (specialized) tutorials.
Hibernate 3.1.1 19
Chapter 2. Architecture
2.1. Overview
A (very) high-level view of the Hibernate architecture:
This diagram shows Hibernate using the database and configuration data to provide persistence services (and
persistent objects) to the application.
We would like to show a more detailed view of the runtime architecture. Unfortunately, Hibernate is flexible
and supports several approaches. We will show the two extremes. The "lite" architecture has the application
provide its own JDBC connections and manage its own transactions. This approach uses a minimal subset of
Hibernate's APIs:
The "full cream" architecture abstracts the application away from the underlying JDBC/JTA APIs and lets Hi-
Hibernate 3.1.1 20
Architecture
bernate take care of the details.
Heres some definitions of the objects in the diagrams:
SessionFactory (org.hibernate.SessionFactory)
A threadsafe (immutable) cache of compiled mappings for a single database. A factory for Session and a
client of ConnectionProvider. Might hold an optional (second-level) cache of data that is reusable
between transactions, at a process- or cluster-level.
Session (org.hibernate.Session)
A single-threaded, short-lived object representing a conversation between the application and the persistent
store. Wraps a JDBC connection. Factory for Transaction. Holds a mandatory (first-level) cache of per-
sistent objects, used when navigating the object graph or looking up objects by identifier.
Persistent objects and collections

Short-lived, single threaded objects containing persistent state and business function. These might be ordin-
ary JavaBeans/POJOs, the only special thing about them is that they are currently associated with (exactly
one) Session. As soon as the Session is closed, they will be detached and free to use in any application
layer (e.g. directly as data transfer objects to and from presentation).
Transient and detached objects and collections

Instances of persistent classes that are not currently associated with a Session. They may have been instan-
tiated by the application and not (yet) persisted or they may have been instantiated by a closed Session.
Transaction (org.hibernate.Transaction)
(Optional) A single-threaded, short-lived object used by the application to specify atomic units of work.
Abstracts application from underlying JDBC, JTA or CORBA transaction. A Session might span several
Transactions in some cases. However, transaction demarcation, either using the underlying API or Trans-
action, is never optional!
Hibernate 3.1.1 21
Architecture
ConnectionProvider (org.hibernate.connection.ConnectionProvider)
(Optional) A factory for (and pool of) JDBC connections. Abstracts application from underlying Data-
source or DriverManager. Not exposed to application, but can be extended/implemented by the developer.
TransactionFactory (org.hibernate.TransactionFactory)
(Optional) A factory for Transaction instances. Not exposed to the application, but can be extended/
implemented by the developer.
Extension Interfaces
Hibernate offers many optional extension interfaces you can implement to customize the behavior of your
persistence layer. See the API documentation for details.
Given a "lite" architecture, the application bypasses the Transaction/TransactionFactory and/or Connec-
tionProvider APIs to talk to JTA or JDBC directly.
2.2. Instance states

An instance of a persistent classes may be in one of three different states, which are defined with respect to a
persistence context. The Hibernate Session object is the persistence context:
transient
The instance is not, and has never been associated with any persistence context. It has no persistent identity
(primary key value).
persistent
The instance is currently associated with a persistence context. It has a persistent identity (primary key
value) and, perhaps, a corresponding row in the database. For a particular persistence context, Hibernate
guarantees that persistent identity is equivalent to Java identity (in-memory location of the object).
detached
The instance was once associated with a persistence context, but that context was closed, or the instance
was serialized to another process. It has a persistent identity and, perhaps, a corrsponding row in the data-
base. For detached instances, Hibernate makes no guarantees about the relationship between persistent
identity and Java identity.
2.3. JMX Integration

JMX is the J2EE standard for management of Java components. Hibernate may be managed via a JMX stand-
ard service. We provide an MBean implementation in the distribution,
org.hibernate.jmx.HibernateService.
For an example how to deploy Hibernate as a JMX service on the JBoss Application Server, please see the
JBoss User Guide. On JBoss AS, you also get these benefits if you deploy using JMX:
• Session Management: The Hibernate Session's lifecycle can be automatically bound to the scope of a JTA
transaction. This means you no longer have to manually open and close the Session, this becomes the job
of a JBoss EJB interceptor. You also don't have to worry about transaction demarcation in your code any-
more (unless you'd like to write a portable persistence layer of course, use the optional Hibernate Transac-
tion API for this). You call the HibernateContext to access a Session.
Hibernate 3.1.1 22
Architecture
• HAR deployment: Usually you deploy the Hibernate JMX service using a JBoss service deployment
descriptor (in an EAR and/or SAR file), it supports all the usual configuration options of a Hibernate Ses-
sionFactory. However, you still have to name all your mapping files in the deployment descriptor. If you
decide to use the optional HAR deployment, JBoss will automatically detect all mapping files in your HAR
file.
Consult the JBoss AS user guide for more information about these options.
Another feature available as a JMX service are runtime Hibernate statistics. See Section 3.4.6, “Hibernate stat-
istics”.
2.4. JCA Support

Hibernate may also be configured as a JCA connector. Please see the website for more details. Please note that
Hibernate JCA support is still considered experimental.
2.5. Contextual Sessions

Most applications using Hibernate need some form of "contextual" sessions, where a given session is in effect
throughout the scope of a given context. However, across applications the definition of what constitutes a con-
text is typically different; and different contexts define different scopes to the notion of current. Applications
using Hibernate prior to version 3.0 tended to utilize either home-grown ThreadLocal-based contextual ses-
sions, helper classes such as HibernateUtil, or utilized third-party frameworks (such as Spring or Pico) which
provided proxy/interception-based contextual sessions.
Starting with version 3.0.1, Hibernate added the SessionFactory.getCurrentSession() method. Initially, this
assumed usage of JTA transactions, where the JTA transaction defined both the scope and context of a current
session. The Hibernate team maintains that, given the maturity of the numerous stand-alone JTA Transaction-
Manager implementations out there, most (if not all) applications should be using JTA transaction management
whether or not they are deployed into a J2EE container. Based on that, the JTA-based contextual sessions is all
you should ever need to use.
However, as of version 3.1, the processing behind SessionFactory.getCurrentSession() is now pluggable.

To that end, a new extension interface (org.hibernate.context.CurrentSessionContext) and a new config-
uration parameter (hibernate.current_session_context_class) have been added to allow pluggability of the
scope and context of defining current sessions.
See the Javadocs for the org.hibernate.context.CurrentSessionContext interface for a detailed discussion
of its contract. It defines a single method, currentSession(), by which the implementation is responsible for
tracking the current contextual session. Out-of-the-box, Hibernate comes with two implementations of this in-
terface.
• org.hibernate.context.JTASessionContext - current sessions are tracked and scoped by a JTA transac-

tion. The processing here is exactly the same as in the older JTA-only approach. See the Javadocs for de-
tails.
• org.hibernate.context.ThreadLocalSessionContext - current sessions are tracked by thread of execu-

tion. Again, see the Javadocs for details.
Both implementations provide a "one session - one database transaction" programming model, also known and
Hibernate 3.1.1 23
Architecture
used as session-per-request. The beginning and end of a Hibernate session is defined by the duration of a data-
base transaction. If you use programatic transaction demarcation (e.g. in pure J2SE or with JTA/
UserTransaction/BMT), you are adviced to use the Hibernate Transaction API to hide the underlying transac-
tion system from your code. If you execute in an EJB container that supports CMT, transaction boundaries are
defined declaratively and you don't need any transaction or session demarcation operations in your code. Refer
to Chapter 11, Transactions And Concurrency for more information and code examples.
The hibernate.current_session_context_class configuration parameter defines which

org.hibernate.context.CurrentSessionContext implementation should be used. Note that for backwards
compatibility, if this config param is not set but a org.hibernate.transaction.TransactionManagerLookup
is configured, Hibernate will use the org.hibernate.context.JTASessionContext. Typically, the value of this
parameter would just name the implementation class to use; for the two out-of-the-box implementations,
however, there are two corresponding short names, "jta" and "thread".
Hibernate 3.1.1 24
Chapter 3. Configuration
Because Hibernate is designed to operate in many different environments, there are a large number of configur-
ation parameters. Fortunately, most have sensible default values and Hibernate is distributed with an example
hibernate.properties file in etc/ that shows the various options. Just put the example file in your classpath
and customize it.
3.1. Programmatic configuration

An instance of org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration represents an entire set of mappings of an application's
Java types to an SQL database. The Configuration is used to build an (immutable) SessionFactory. The map-
pings are compiled from various XML mapping files.
You may obtain a Configuration instance by instantiating it directly and specifying XML mapping docu-
ments. If the mapping files are in the classpath, use addResource():
Configuration cfg = new Configuration()

.addResource("Item.hbm.xml")
.addResource("Bid.hbm.xml");
An alternative (sometimes better) way is to specify the mapped class, and let Hibernate find the mapping docu-
ment for you:

.addClass(org.hibernate.auction.Item.class)
.addClass(org.hibernate.auction.Bid.class);
Then Hibernate will look for mapping files named /org/hibernate/auction/Item.hbm.xml and /
org/hibernate/auction/Bid.hbm.xml in the classpath. This approach eliminates any hardcoded filenames.
A Configuration also allows you to specify configuration properties:

.addClass(org.hibernate.auction.Item.class)
.addClass(org.hibernate.auction.Bid.class)
.setProperty("hibernate.dialect", "org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLInnoDBDialect")
.setProperty("hibernate.connection.datasource", "java:comp/env/jdbc/test")
.setProperty("hibernate.order_updates", "true");
This is not the only way to pass configuration properties to Hibernate. The various options include:
1. Pass an instance of java.util.Properties to Configuration.setProperties().

2. Place hibernate.properties in a root directory of the classpath.
3. Set System properties using java -Dproperty=value.
4. Include <property> elements in hibernate.cfg.xml (discussed later).
hibernate.properties is the easiest approach if you want to get started quickly.
The Configuration is intended as a startup-time object, to be discarded once a SessionFactory is created.
3.2. Obtaining a SessionFactory

When all mappings have been parsed by the Configuration, the application must obtain a factory for Session
Hibernate 3.1.1 25
Configuration
instances. This factory is intended to be shared by all application threads:
SessionFactory sessions = cfg.buildSessionFactory();
Hibernate does allow your application to instantiate more than one SessionFactory. This is useful if you are
using more than one database.
3.3. JDBC connections

Usually, you want to have the SessionFactory create and pool JDBC connections for you. If you take this ap-
proach, opening a Session is as simple as:
Session session = sessions.openSession(); // open a new Session
As soon as you do something that requires access to the database, a JDBC connection will be obtained from the
pool.
For this to work, we need to pass some JDBC connection properties to Hibernate. All Hibernate property names
and semantics are defined on the class org.hibernate.cfg.Environment. We will now describe the most im-
portant settings for JDBC connection configuration.
Hibernate will obtain (and pool) connections using java.sql.DriverManager if you set the following proper-
ties:
Table 3.1. Hibernate JDBC Properties
Property name Purpose
hibernate.connection.driver_class jdbc driver class
hibernate.connection.url jdbc URL
hibernate.connection.username database user
hibernate.connection.password database user password
hibernate.connection.pool_size maximum number of pooled connections
Hibernate's own connection pooling algorithm is however quite rudimentary. It is intended to help you get star-
ted and is not intended for use in a production system or even for performance testing. You should use a third
party pool for best performance and stability. Just replace the hibernate.connection.pool_size property with
connection pool specific settings. This will turn off Hibernate's internal pool. For example, you might like to
use C3P0.
C3P0 is an open source JDBC connection pool distributed along with Hibernate in the lib directory. Hibernate
will use its C3P0ConnectionProvider for connection pooling if you set hibernate.c3p0.* properties. If you'd
like to use Proxool refer to the packaged hibernate.properties and the Hibernate web site for more informa-
tion.
Here is an example hibernate.properties file for C3P0:
hibernate.connection.driver_class = org.postgresql.Driver
hibernate.connection.url = jdbc:postgresql://localhost/mydatabase
hibernate.connection.username = myuser
hibernate.connection.password = secret
Hibernate 3.1.1 26
Configuration
hibernate.c3p0.min_size=5
hibernate.c3p0.max_size=20
hibernate.c3p0.timeout=1800
hibernate.c3p0.max_statements=50
hibernate.dialect = org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect
For use inside an application server, you should almost always configure Hibernate to obtain connections from
an application server Datasource registered in JNDI. You'll need to set at least one of the following properties:
Table 3.2. Hibernate Datasource Properties
Propery name Purpose
hibernate.connection.datasource datasource JNDI name
hibernate.jndi.url URL of the JNDI provider (optional)
hibernate.jndi.class class of the JNDI InitialContextFactory (optional)
hibernate.connection.username database user (optional)
hibernate.connection.password database user password (optional)
Here's an example hibernate.properties file for an application server provided JNDI datasource:
hibernate.connection.datasource = java:/comp/env/jdbc/test
hibernate.transaction.factory_class = \
org.hibernate.transaction.JTATransactionFactory
hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class = \
org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup
hibernate.dialect = org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect
JDBC connections obtained from a JNDI datasource will automatically participate in the container-managed
transactions of the application server.
Arbitrary connection properties may be given by prepending "hibernate.connnection" to the property name.
For example, you may specify a charSet using hibernate.connection.charSet.
You may define your own plugin strategy for obtaining JDBC connections by implementing the interface
org.hibernate.connection.ConnectionProvider. You may select a custom implementation by setting hi-
bernate.connection.provider_class.
3.4. Optional configuration properties

There are a number of other properties that control the behaviour of Hibernate at runtime. All are optional and
have reasonable default values.
Warning: some of these properties are "system-level" only. System-level properties can be set only via java -
Dproperty=value or hibernate.properties. They may not be set by the other techniques described above.
Table 3.3. Hibernate Configuration Properties
hibernate.dialect The classname of a Hibernate Dialect which allows
Hibernate 3.1.1 27
Configuration
Hibernate to generate SQL optimized for a particular

relational database.
eg. full.classname.of.Dialect
hibernate.show_sql Write all SQL statements to console. This is an al-

ternative to setting the log category
org.hibernate.SQL to debug.
eg. true | false
hibernate.format_sql Pretty print the SQL in the log and console.
eg. true | false
hibernate.default_schema Qualify unqualified tablenames with the given

schema/tablespace in generated SQL.
eg. SCHEMA_NAME
hibernate.default_catalog Qualify unqualified tablenames with the given cata-

log in generated SQL.
eg. CATALOG_NAME
hibernate.session_factory_name The SessionFactory will be automatically bound to

this name in JNDI after it has been created.
eg. jndi/composite/name
hibernate.max_fetch_depth Set a maximum "depth" for the outer join fetch tree
for single-ended associations (one-to-one, many-
to-one). A 0 disables default outer join fetching.
eg. recommended values between 0 and 3
hibernate.default_batch_fetch_size Set a default size for Hibernate batch fetching of as-

sociations.
eg. recommended values 4, 8, 16
hibernate.default_entity_mode Set a default mode for entity representation for all

sessions opened from this SessionFactory
dynamic-map, dom4j, pojo
hibernate.order_updates Force Hibernate to order SQL updates by the primary

key value of the items being updated. This will result
in fewer transaction deadlocks in highly concurrent
systems.
eg. true | false
hibernate.generate_statistics If enabled, Hibernate will collect statistics useful for

performance tuning.
eg. true | false
Hibernate 3.1.1 28
Configuration
hibernate.use_identifer_rollback If enabled, generated identifier properties will be re-

set to default values when objects are deleted.
eg. true | false
hibernate.use_sql_comments If turned on, Hibernate will generate comments inside

the SQL, for easier debugging, defaults to false.
eg. true | false
Table 3.4. Hibernate JDBC and Connection Properties
hibernate.jdbc.fetch_size A non-zero value determines the JDBC fetch size

(calls Statement.setFetchSize()).
hibernate.jdbc.batch_size A non-zero value enables use of JDBC2 batch up-

dates by Hibernate.
eg. recommended values between 5 and 30
hibernate.jdbc.batch_versioned_data Set this property to true if your JDBC driver returns

correct row counts from executeBatch() (it is usu-
ally safe to turn this option on). Hibernate will then
use batched DML for automatically versioned data.
Defaults to false.
eg. true | false
hibernate.jdbc.factory_class Select a custom Batcher. Most applications will not

need this configuration property.
eg. classname.of.Batcher
hibernate.jdbc.use_scrollable_resultset Enables use of JDBC2 scrollable resultsets by Hi-

bernate. This property is only necessary when using
user supplied JDBC connections, Hibernate uses con-
nection metadata otherwise.
eg. true | false
hibernate.jdbc.use_streams_for_binary Use streams when writing/reading binary or serial-

izable types to/from JDBC (system-level property).
eg. true | false
hibernate.jdbc.use_get_generated_keys Enable use of JDBC3 PreparedState-

ment.getGeneratedKeys() to retrieve natively gener-
ated keys after insert. Requires JDBC3+ driver and
JRE1.4+, set to false if your driver has problems with
the Hibernate identifier generators. By default, tries to
determine the driver capabilites using connection
metadata.
Hibernate 3.1.1 29
Configuration
eg. true|false
hibernate.connection.provider_class The classname of a custom ConnectionProvider

which provides JDBC connections to Hibernate.
eg. classname.of.ConnectionProvider
hibernate.connection.isolation Set the JDBC transaction isolation level. Check

java.sql.Connection for meaningful values but note
that most databases do not support all isolation levels.
eg. 1, 2, 4, 8
hibernate.connection.autocommit Enables autocommit for JDBC pooled connections

(not recommended).
eg. true | false
hibernate.connection.release_mode Specify when Hibernate should release JDBC con-

nections. By default, a JDBC connection is held until
the session is explicitly closed or disconnected. For
an application server JTA datasource, you should use
after_statement to aggressively release connections
after every JDBC call. For a non-JTA connection, it
often makes sense to release the connection at the end
of each transaction, by using after_transaction.
auto will choose after_statement for the JTA and
CMT transaction strategies and after_transaction
for the JDBC transaction strategy.
eg. on_close (default) | after_transaction |

after_statement | auto
hibernate.connection.<propertyName> Pass the JDBC property propertyName to DriverMan-

ager.getConnection().
hibernate.jndi.<propertyName> Pass the property propertyName to the JNDI Ini-

tialContextFactory.
Table 3.5. Hibernate Cache Properties
hibernate.cache.provider_class The classname of a custom CacheProvider.
eg. classname.of.CacheProvider
hibernate.cache.use_minimal_puts Optimize second-level cache operation to minimize

writes, at the cost of more frequent reads. This setting
is most useful for clustered caches and, in Hibernate3,
is enabled by default for clustered cache implementa-
tions.
eg. true|false
Hibernate 3.1.1 30
Configuration
hibernate.cache.use_query_cache Enable the query cache, individual queries still have

to be set cachable.
eg. true|false
hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache May be used to completely disable the second level

cache, which is enabled by default for classes which
specify a <cache> mapping.
eg. true|false
hibernate.cache.query_cache_factory The classname of a custom QueryCache interface, de-

faults to the built-in StandardQueryCache.
eg. classname.of.QueryCache
hibernate.cache.region_prefix A prefix to use for second-level cache region names.
eg. prefix
hibernate.cache.use_structured_entries Forces Hibernate to store data in the second-level

cache in a more human-friendly format.
eg. true|false
Table 3.6. Hibernate Transaction Properties
hibernate.transaction.factory_class The classname of a TransactionFactory to use with

Hibernate Transaction API (defaults to JDBCTrans-
actionFactory).
eg. classname.of.TransactionFactory
jta.UserTransaction A JNDI name used by JTATransactionFactory to

obtain the JTA UserTransaction from the applica-
tion server.
eg. jndi/composite/name
hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class The classname of a TransactionManagerLookup - re-

quired when JVM-level caching is enabled or when
using hilo generator in a JTA environment.
eg. classname.of.TransactionManagerLookup
hibernate.transaction.flush_before_completion If enabled, the session will be automatically flushed

during the before completion phase of the transaction.
Built-in and automatic session context management is
preferred, see Section 2.5, “Contextual Sessions”.
eg. true | false
hibernate.transaction.auto_close_session If enabled, the session will be automatically closed

during the after completion phase of the transaction.
Hibernate 3.1.1 31
Configuration
Built-in and utomatic session context management is

preferred, see Section 2.5, “Contextual Sessions”.
eg. true | false
Table 3.7. Miscellaneous Properties
hibernate.current_session_context_class Supply a (custom) strategy for the scoping of the "cur-

rent" Session. See Section 2.5, “Contextual Ses-
sions” for more information about the built-in
strategies.
eg. jta | thread | custom.Class
hibernate.query.factory_class Chooses the HQL parser implementation.
eg.
org.hibernate.hql.ast.ASTQueryTranslatorFacto
ry or
org.hibernate.hql.classic.ClassicQueryTransla
torFactory
hibernate.query.substitutions Mapping from tokens in Hibernate queries to SQL

tokens (tokens might be function or literal names, for
example).
eg. hqlLiteral=SQL_LITERAL, hqlFunc-

tion=SQLFUNC
hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto Automatically validate or export schema DDL to the

database when the SessionFactory is created. With
create-drop, the database schema will be dropped
when the SessionFactory is closed explicitly.
eg. validate | update | create | create-drop
hibernate.cglib.use_reflection_optimizer Enables use of CGLIB instead of runtime reflection

(System-level property). Reflection can sometimes be
useful when troubleshooting, note that Hibernate al-
ways requires CGLIB even if you turn off the optim-
izer. You can not set this property in hibern-
ate.cfg.xml.
eg. true | false
3.4.1. SQL Dialects
You should always set the hibernate.dialect property to the correct org.hibernate.dialect.Dialect sub-
class for your database. If you specify a dialect, Hibernate will use sensible defaults for some of the other prop-
Hibernate 3.1.1 32
Configuration
erties listed above, saving you the effort of specifying them manually.
Table 3.8. Hibernate SQL Dialects (hibernate.dialect)
RDBMS Dialect
DB2 org.hibernate.dialect.DB2Dialect
DB2 AS/400 org.hibernate.dialect.DB2400Dialect
DB2 OS390 org.hibernate.dialect.DB2390Dialect
PostgreSQL org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect
MySQL org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect
MySQL with InnoDB org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLInnoDBDialect
MySQL with MyISAM org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLMyISAMDialect
Oracle (any version) org.hibernate.dialect.OracleDialect
Oracle 9i/10g org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle9Dialect
Sybase org.hibernate.dialect.SybaseDialect
Sybase Anywhere org.hibernate.dialect.SybaseAnywhereDialect
Microsoft SQL Server org.hibernate.dialect.SQLServerDialect
SAP DB org.hibernate.dialect.SAPDBDialect
Informix org.hibernate.dialect.InformixDialect
HypersonicSQL org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect
Ingres org.hibernate.dialect.IngresDialect
Progress org.hibernate.dialect.ProgressDialect
Mckoi SQL org.hibernate.dialect.MckoiDialect
Interbase org.hibernate.dialect.InterbaseDialect
Pointbase org.hibernate.dialect.PointbaseDialect
FrontBase org.hibernate.dialect.FrontbaseDialect
Firebird org.hibernate.dialect.FirebirdDialect
3.4.2. Outer Join Fetching
If your database supports ANSI, Oracle or Sybase style outer joins, outer join fetching will often increase per-
formance by limiting the number of round trips to and from the database (at the cost of possibly more work per-
formed by the database itself). Outer join fetching allows a whole graph of objects connected by many-to-one,
one-to-many, many-to-many and one-to-one associations to be retrieved in a single SQL SELECT.
Outer join fetching may be disabled globally by setting the property hibernate.max_fetch_depth to 0. A set-
ting of 1 or higher enables outer join fetching for one-to-one and many-to-one associations which have been
mapped with fetch="join".
Hibernate 3.1.1 33
Configuration
See Section 19.1, “Fetching strategies” for more information.
3.4.3. Binary Streams
Oracle limits the size of byte arrays that may be passed to/from its JDBC driver. If you wish to use large in-
stances of binary or serializable type, you should enable hibernate.jdbc.use_streams_for_binary. This
is a system-level setting only.
3.4.4. Second-level and query cache
The properties prefixed by hibernate.cache allow you to use a process or cluster scoped second-level cache
system with Hibernate. See the Section 19.2, “The Second Level Cache” for more details.
3.4.5. Query Language Substitution
You may define new Hibernate query tokens using hibernate.query.substitutions. For example:
hibernate.query.substitutions true=1, false=0
would cause the tokens true and false to be translated to integer literals in the generated SQL.
hibernate.query.substitutions toLowercase=LOWER
would allow you to rename the SQL LOWER function.
3.4.6. Hibernate statistics
If you enable hibernate.generate_statistics, Hibernate will expose a number of metrics that are useful
when tuning a running system via SessionFactory.getStatistics(). Hibernate can even be configured to ex-
pose these statistics via JMX. Read the Javadoc of the interfaces in org.hibernate.stats for more informa-
tion.
3.5. Logging
Hibernate logs various events using Apache commons-logging.
The commons-logging service will direct output to either Apache Log4j (if you include log4j.jar in your
classpath) or JDK1.4 logging (if running under JDK1.4 or above). You may download Log4j from ht-
tp://jakarta.apache.org. To use Log4j you will need to place a log4j.properties file in your classpath, an
example properties file is distributed with Hibernate in the src/ directory.
We strongly recommend that you familiarize yourself with Hibernate's log messages. A lot of work has been
put into making the Hibernate log as detailed as possible, without making it unreadable. It is an essential
troubleshooting device. The most interesting log categories are the following:
Table 3.9. Hibernate Log Categories
Category Function
org.hibernate.SQL Log all SQL DML statements as they are executed
Hibernate 3.1.1 34
Configuration
Category Function
org.hibernate.type Log all JDBC parameters
org.hibernate.tool.hbm2dd Log all SQL DDL statements as they are executed

l
org.hibernate.pretty Log the state of all entities (max 20 entities) associated with the session at
flush time
org.hibernate.cache Log all second-level cache activity
org.hibernate.transaction Log transaction related activity
org.hibernate.jdbc Log all JDBC resource acquisition
org.hibernate.hql.ast.AST Log HQL and SQL ASTs during query parsing
org.hibernate.secure Log all JAAS authorization requests
org.hibernate Log everything (a lot of information, but very useful for troubleshooting)
When developing applications with Hibernate, you should almost always work with debug enabled for the cat-
egory org.hibernate.SQL, or, alternatively, the property hibernate.show_sql enabled.
3.6. Implementing a NamingStrategy

The interface org.hibernate.cfg.NamingStrategy allows you to specify a "naming standard" for database ob-
jects and schema elements.
You may provide rules for automatically generating database identifiers from Java identifiers or for processing
"logical" column and table names given in the mapping file into "physical" table and column names. This fea-
ture helps reduce the verbosity of the mapping document, eliminating repetitive noise (TBL_ prefixes, for ex-
ample). The default strategy used by Hibernate is quite minimal.
You may specify a different strategy by calling Configuration.setNamingStrategy() before adding map-
pings:
SessionFactory sf = new Configuration()

.setNamingStrategy(ImprovedNamingStrategy.INSTANCE)
.addFile("Item.hbm.xml")
.addFile("Bid.hbm.xml")
.buildSessionFactory();
org.hibernate.cfg.ImprovedNamingStrategy is a built-in strategy that might be a useful starting point for

some applications.
3.7. XML configuration file

An alternative approach to configuration is to specify a full configuration in a file named hibernate.cfg.xml.
This file can be used as a replacement for the hibernate.properties file or, if both are present, to override
properties.
The XML configuration file is by default expected to be in the root o your CLASSPATH. Here is an example:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
Hibernate 3.1.1 35
Configuration
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC

"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">


<session-factory
name="java:hibernate/SessionFactory">


<property name="connection.datasource">java:/comp/env/jdbc/MyDB</property>
<property name="dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</property>
<property name="show_sql">false</property>
<property name="transaction.factory_class">
</property>
<property name="jta.UserTransaction">java:comp/UserTransaction</property>


<mapping resource="org/hibernate/auction/Item.hbm.xml"/>
<mapping resource="org/hibernate/auction/Bid.hbm.xml"/>


<class-cache class="org.hibernate.auction.Item" usage="read-write"/>
<class-cache class="org.hibernate.auction.Bid" usage="read-only"/>
<collection-cache collection="org.hibernate.auction.Item.bids" usage="read-write"/>
</session-factory>
As you can see, the advantage of this approach is the externalization of the mapping file names to configura-
tion. The hibernate.cfg.xml is also more convenient once you have to tune the Hibernate cache. Note that is
your choice to use either hibernate.properties or hibernate.cfg.xml, both are equivalent, except for the
above mentioned benefits of using the XML syntax.
With the XML configuration, starting Hibernate is then as simple as
SessionFactory sf = new Configuration().configure().buildSessionFactory();
You can pick a different XML configuration file using
SessionFactory sf = new Configuration()

.configure("catdb.cfg.xml")
3.8. J2EE Application Server integration

Hibernate has the following integration points for J2EE infrastructure:
• Container-managed datasources: Hibernate can use JDBC connections managed by the container and
provided through JNDI. Usually, a JTA compatible TransactionManager and a ResourceManager take care
of transaction management (CMT), esp. distributed transaction handling across several datasources. You
may of course also demarcate transaction boundaries programatically (BMT) or you might want to use the
optional Hibernate Transaction API for this to keep your code portable.
• Automatic JNDI binding: Hibernate can bind its SessionFactory to JNDI after startup.
Hibernate 3.1.1 36
Configuration
• JTA Session binding: The Hibernate Session may be automatically bound to the scope of JTA transactions.
Simply lookup the SessionFactory from JNDI and get the current Session. Let Hibernate take care of
flushing and closing the Session when your JTA transaction completes. Transaction demarcation is either
declarative (CMT) or programmatic (BMT/UserTransaction).
• JMX deployment: If you have a JMX capable application server (e.g. JBoss AS), you can chose to deploy
Hibernate as a managed MBean. This saves you the one line startup code to build your SessionFactory
from a Configuration. The container will startup your HibernateService, and ideally also take care of
service dependencies (Datasource has to be available before Hibernate starts, etc).
Depending on your environment,

you might have to set the configuration option hibern-
ate.connection.aggressive_release to true if your application server shows "connection containment" ex-
ceptions.
3.8.1. Transaction strategy configuration
The Hibernate Session API is independent of any transaction demarcation system in your architecture. If you
let Hibernate use JDBC directly, through a connection pool, you may begin and end your transactions by call-
ing the JDBC API. If you run in a J2EE application server, you might want to use bean-managed transactions
and call the JTA API and UserTransaction when needed.
To keep your code portable between these two (and other) environments we recommend the optional Hibernate
Transaction API, which wraps and hides the underlying system. You have to specify a factory class for
Transaction instances by setting the Hibernate configuration property hibern-
ate.transaction.factory_class.
There are three standard (built-in) choices:
org.hibernate.transaction.JDBCTransactionFactory
delegates to database (JDBC) transactions (default)
delegates to container-managed transaction if an existing transaction is underway in this context (e.g. EJB
session bean method), otherwise a new transaction is started and bean-managed transaction are used.
org.hibernate.transaction.CMTTransactionFactory
delegates to container-managed JTA transactions
You may also define your own transaction strategies (for a CORBA transaction service, for example).
Some features in Hibernate (i.e. the second level cache, Contextual Sessions with JTA, etc.) require access to
the JTA TransactionManager in a managed environment. In an application server you have to specify how Hi-
bernate should obtain a reference to the TransactionManager, since J2EE does not standardize a single mech-
anism:
Table 3.10. JTA TransactionManagers
Transaction Factory Application Server
org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup JBoss
org.hibernate.transaction.WeblogicTransactionManagerLookup Weblogic
Hibernate 3.1.1 37
Configuration
Transaction Factory Application Server
org.hibernate.transaction.WebSphereTransactionManagerLookup WebSphere
org.hibernate.transaction.WebSphereExtendedJTATransactionLookup WebSphere 6
org.hibernate.transaction.OrionTransactionManagerLookup Orion
org.hibernate.transaction.ResinTransactionManagerLookup Resin
org.hibernate.transaction.JOTMTransactionManagerLookup JOTM
org.hibernate.transaction.JOnASTransactionManagerLookup JOnAS
org.hibernate.transaction.JRun4TransactionManagerLookup JRun4
org.hibernate.transaction.BESTransactionManagerLookup Borland ES
3.8.2. JNDI-bound SessionFactory
A JNDI bound Hibernate SessionFactory can simplify the lookup of the factory and the creation of new Ses-
sions. Note that this is not related to a JNDI bound Datasource, both simply use the same registry!
If you wish to have the SessionFactory bound to a JNDI namespace, specify a name (eg.
java:hibernate/SessionFactory) using the property hibernate.session_factory_name. If this property is
omitted, the SessionFactory will not be bound to JNDI. (This is especially useful in environments with a read-
only JNDI default implementation, e.g. Tomcat.)
When binding the SessionFactory to JNDI, Hibernate will use the values of hibernate.jndi.url, hibern-
ate.jndi.class to instantiate an initial context. If they are not specified, the default InitialContext will be
used.
Hibernate will automatically place the SessionFactory in JNDI after you call cfg.buildSessionFactory().
This means you will at least have this call in some startup code (or utility class) in your application, unless you
use JMX deployment with the HibernateService (discussed later).
If you use a JNDI SessionFactory, an EJB or any other class may obtain the SessionFactory using a JNDI
lookup.
We recommend that you bind the SessionFactory to JNDI in a managend environment and use a static
singleton otherwise. To shield your application code from these details, we also recommend to hide the actual
lookup code for a SessionFactory in a helper class, such as HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory(). Note that
such a class is also a convenient way to startup Hibernate—see chapter 1.
3.8.3. Current Session context management with JTA
The easiest way to handle Sessions and transactions is Hibernates automatic "current" Session management.
See the discussion of Section 2.5, “Contextual Sessions”. Using the "jta" session context, if there is no Hi-
bernate Session associated with the current JTA transaction, one will be started and associated with that JTA
transaction the first time you call sessionFactory.getCurrentSession(). The Sessions retrieved via getCur-
rentSession() in "jta" context will be set to automatically flush before the transaction completes, close after
the transaction completes, and aggressively release JDBC connections after each statement. This allows the
Sessions to be managed by the lifecycle of the JTA transaction to which it is associated, keeping user code
clean of such management concerns. Your code can either use JTA programmatically through UserTransac-
tion, or (recommended for portable code) use the Hibernate Transaction API to set transaction boundaries. If
Hibernate 3.1.1 38
Configuration
you run in an EJB container, declarative transaction demarcation with CMT is preferred.
3.8.4. JMX deployment
The line cfg.buildSessionFactory() still has to be executed somewhere to get a SessionFactory into JNDI.
You can do this either in a static initializer block (like the one in HibernateUtil) or you deploy Hibernate as
a managed service.
Hibernate is distributed with org.hibernate.jmx.HibernateService for deployment on an application server

with JMX capabilities, such as JBoss AS. The actual deployment and configuration is vendor specific. Here is
an example jboss-service.xml for JBoss 4.0.x:
<server>
<mbean code="org.hibernate.jmx.HibernateService"
name="jboss.jca:service=HibernateFactory,name=HibernateFactory">


<depends>jboss.jca:service=RARDeployer</depends>
<depends>jboss.jca:service=LocalTxCM,name=HsqlDS</depends>


<attribute name="JndiName">java:/hibernate/SessionFactory</attribute>


<attribute name="Datasource">java:HsqlDS</attribute>
<attribute name="Dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect</attribute>


<attribute name="TransactionStrategy">
org.hibernate.transaction.JTATransactionFactory</attribute>
<attribute name="TransactionManagerLookupStrategy">
org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup</attribute>
<attribute name="FlushBeforeCompletionEnabled">true</attribute>
<attribute name="AutoCloseSessionEnabled">true</attribute>


<attribute name="MaximumFetchDepth">5</attribute>


<attribute name="SecondLevelCacheEnabled">true</attribute>
<attribute name="CacheProviderClass">org.hibernate.cache.EhCacheProvider</attribute>
<attribute name="QueryCacheEnabled">true</attribute>


<attribute name="ShowSqlEnabled">true</attribute>


<attribute name="MapResources">auction/Item.hbm.xml,auction/Category.hbm.xml</attribute>
</mbean>
</server>
This file is deployed in a directory called META-INF and packaged in a JAR file with the extension .sar (service
archive). You also need to package Hibernate, its required third-party libraries, your compiled persistent
classes, as well as your mapping files in the same archive. Your enterprise beans (usually session beans) may
be kept in their own JAR file, but you may include this EJB JAR file in the main service archive to get a single
(hot-)deployable unit. Consult the JBoss AS documentation for more information about JMX service and EJB
deployment.
Hibernate 3.1.1 39
Chapter 4. Persistent Classes
Persistent classes are classes in an application that implement the entities of the business problem (e.g. Custom-
er and Order in an E-commerce application). Not all instances of a persistent class are considered to be in the
persistent state - an instance may instead be transient or detached.
Hibernate works best if these classes follow some simple rules, also known as the Plain Old Java Object
(POJO) programming model. However, none of these rules are hard requirements. Indeed, Hibernate3 assumes
very little about the nature of your persistent objects. You may express a domain model in other ways: using
trees of Map instances, for example.
4.1. A simple POJO example

Most Java applications require a persistent class representing felines.
package eg;
import java.util.Set;
public class Cat {

private Long id; // identifier
private Date birthdate;

private Color color;
private char sex;
private float weight;
private int litterId;
private Cat mother;

private Set kittens = new HashSet();

this.id=id;
}
return id;
}
void setBirthdate(Date date) {

birthdate = date;
}
public Date getBirthdate() {
return birthdate;
}
void setWeight(float weight) {

this.weight = weight;
}
public float getWeight() {
return weight;
}
public Color getColor() {

return color;
}
void setColor(Color color) {
this.color = color;
}
void setSex(char sex) {

this.sex=sex;
}
public char getSex() {
return sex;
Hibernate 3.1.1 40
Persistent Classes
void setLitterId(int id) {

this.litterId = id;
}
public int getLitterId() {
return litterId;
}
void setMother(Cat mother) {

this.mother = mother;
}
public Cat getMother() {
return mother;
}
void setKittens(Set kittens) {
this.kittens = kittens;
}
public Set getKittens() {
return kittens;
}
// addKitten not needed by Hibernate

public void addKitten(Cat kitten) {
kitten.setMother(this);
kitten.setLitterId( kittens.size() );
kittens.add(kitten);
}
}
There are four main rules to follow here:
4.1.1. Implement a no-argument constructor
Cat has a no-argument constructor. All persistent classes must have a default constructor (which may be non-
public) so that Hibernate can instantiate them using Constructor.newInstance(). We strongly recommend
having a default constructor with at least package visibility for runtime proxy generation in Hibernate.
4.1.2. Provide an identifier property (optional)
Cat has a property called id. This property maps to the primary key column of a database table. The property
might have been called anything, and its type might have been any primitive type, any primitive "wrapper"
type, java.lang.String or java.util.Date. (If your legacy database table has composite keys, you can even
use a user-defined class with properties of these types - see the section on composite identifiers later.)
The identifier property is strictly optional. You can leave them off and let Hibernate keep track of object identi-
fiers internally. We do not recommend this, however.
In fact, some functionality is available only to classes which declare an identifier property:
• Transitive reattachment for detached objects (cascade update or cascade merge) - see Section 10.11,
“Transitive persistence”
• Session.saveOrUpdate()
• Session.merge()
We recommend you declare consistently-named identifier properties on persistent classes. We further recom-
mend that you use a nullable (ie. non-primitive) type.
4.1.3. Prefer non-final classes (optional)
Hibernate 3.1.1 41
Persistent Classes
A central feature of Hibernate, proxies, depends upon the persistent class being either non-final, or the imple-
mentation of an interface that declares all public methods.
You can persist final classes that do not implement an interface with Hibernate, but you won't be able to use
proxies for lazy association fetching - which will limit your options for performance tuning.
You should also avoid declaring public final methods on the non-final classes. If you want to use a class
with a public final method, you must explicitly disable proying by setting lazy="false".
4.1.4. Declare accessors and mutators for persistent fields (optional)
Cat declares accessor methods for all its persistent fields. Many other ORM tools directly persist instance vari-
ables. We believe it is better to provide an indirection between the relational schema and internal data structures
of the class. By default, Hibernate persists JavaBeans style properties, and recognizes method names of the
form getFoo, isFoo and setFoo. You may switch to direct field access for particular properties, if needed.
Properties need not be declared public - Hibernate can persist a property with a default, protected or private
get / set pair.
4.2. Implementing inheritance

A subclass must also observe the first and second rules. It inherits its identifier property from the superclass,
Cat.
package eg;
public class DomesticCat extends Cat {

private String name;
public String getName() {

return name;
}
protected void setName(String name) {
this.name=name;
}
}
4.3. Implementing equals() and hashCode()

You have to override the equals() and hashCode() methods if you
• intend to put instances of persistent classes in a Set (the recommended way to represent many-valued asso-
ciations) and
• intend to use reattachment of detached instances
Hibernate guarantees equivalence of persistent identity (database row) and Java identity only inside a particular
session scope. So as soon as we mix instances retrieved in different sessions, we must implement equals() and
hashCode() if we wish to have meaningful semantics for Sets.
The most obvious way is to implement equals()/hashCode() by comparing the identifier value of both objects.
If the value is the same, both must be the same database row, they are therefore equal (if both are added to a
Set, we will only have one element in the Set). Unfortunately, we can't use that approach with generated iden-
tifiers! Hibernate will only assign identifier values to objects that are persistent, a newly created instance will
Hibernate 3.1.1 42
Persistent Classes
not have any identifier value! Furthermore, if an instance is unsaved and currently in a Set, saving it will assign
an identifier value to the object. If equals() and hashCode() are based on the identifier value, the hash code
would change, breaking the contract of the Set. See the Hibernate website for a full discussion of this problem.
Note that this is not a Hibernate issue, but normal Java semantics of object identity and equality.
We recommend implementing equals() and hashCode() using Business key equality. Business key equality
means that the equals() method compares only the properties that form the business key, a key that would
identify our instance in the real world (a natural candidate key):
public class Cat {
...
public boolean equals(Object other) {
if (this == other) return true;
if ( !(other instanceof Cat) ) return false;
final Cat cat = (Cat) other;
if ( !cat.getLitterId().equals( getLitterId() ) ) return false;

if ( !cat.getMother().equals( getMother() ) ) return false;
return true;
}
public int hashCode() {

int result;
result = getMother().hashCode();
result = 29 * result + getLitterId();
return result;
}
Note that a business key does not have to be as solid as a database primary key candidate (see Section 11.1.3,
“Considering object identity”). Immutable or unique properties are usually good candidates for a business key.
4.4. Dynamic models

Note that the following features are currently considered experimental and may change in the near future.
Persistent entities don't necessarily have to be represented as POJO classes or as JavaBean objects at runtime.
Hibernate also supports dynamic models (using Maps of Maps at runtime) and the representation of entities as
DOM4J trees. With this approach, you don't write persistent classes, only mapping files.
By default, Hibernate works in normal POJO mode. You may set a default entity representation mode for a par-
ticular SessionFactory using the default_entity_mode configuration option (see Table 3.3, “Hibernate Con-
figuration Properties”.
The following examples demonstrates the representation using Maps. First, in the mapping file, an entity-name
has to be declared instead of (or in addition to) a class name:
<hibernate-mapping>
<class entity-name="Customer">
<id name="id"
type="long"
column="ID">
<generator class="sequence"/>
</id>
<property name="name"
Hibernate 3.1.1 43
Persistent Classes
column="NAME"
type="string"/>
<property name="address"
column="ADDRESS"
type="string"/>
<many-to-one name="organization"
column="ORGANIZATION_ID"
class="Organization"/>
<bag name="orders"
inverse="true"
lazy="false"
cascade="all">
<key column="CUSTOMER_ID"/>
<one-to-many class="Order"/>
</bag>
</class>
Note that even though associations are declared using target class names, the target type of an associations may
also be a dynamic entity instead of a POJO.
After setting the default entity mode to dynamic-map for the SessionFactory, we can at runtime work with
Maps of Maps:
Session s = openSession();
Transaction tx = s.beginTransaction();
Session s = openSession();
// Create a customer
Map david = new HashMap();
david.put("name", "David");
// Create an organization
Map foobar = new HashMap();
foobar.put("name", "Foobar Inc.");
// Link both
david.put("organization", foobar);
// Save both
s.save("Customer", david);
s.save("Organization", foobar);
tx.commit();
s.close();
The advantages of a dynamic mapping are quick turnaround time for prototyping without the need for entity
class implementation. However, you lose compile-time type checking and will very likely deal with many ex-
ceptions at runtime. Thanks to the Hibernate mapping, the database schema can easily be normalized and
sound, allowing to add a proper domain model implementation on top later on.
Entity representation modes can also be set on a per Session basis:
Session dynamicSession = pojoSession.getSession(EntityMode.MAP);
// Create a customer
Map david = new HashMap();
david.put("name", "David");
dynamicSession.save("Customer", david);
...
dynamicSession.flush();
Hibernate 3.1.1 44
Persistent Classes
dynamicSession.close()
...
// Continue on pojoSession
Please note that the call to getSession() using an EntityMode is on the Session API, not the SessionFactory.
That way, the new Session shares the underlying JDBC connection, transaction, and other context information.
This means you don't have tocall flush() and close() on the secondary Session, and also leave the transac-
tion and connection handling to the primary unit of work.
More information about the XML representation capabilities can be found in Chapter 18, XML Mapping.
4.5. Tuplizers
org.hibernate.tuple.Tuplizer, and its sub-interfaces, are responsible for managing a particular representa-
tion 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. En-
tityTuplizers are responsible for managing the above mentioned contracts in regards to entities, while Com-
ponentTuplizers do the same for components.
Users may also plug in their own tuplizers. Perhaps you require that a java.util.Map implementation other
than java.util.HashMap be used while in the dynamic-map entity-mode; or perhaps you need to define a dif-
ferent proxy generation strategy than the one used by default. Both would be achieved by defining a custom
tuplizer implementation. Tuplizers definitions are attached to the entity or component mapping they are meant
to manage. Going back to the example of our customer entity:
<hibernate-mapping>
<class entity-name="Customer">

<tuplizer entity-mode="dynamic-map"
class="CustomMapTuplizerImpl"/>
<id name="id" type="long" column="ID">

</id>


...
</class>
public class CustomMapTuplizerImpl

extends org.hibernate.tuple.DynamicMapEntityTuplizer {
// override the buildInstantiator() method to plug in our custom map...
protected final Instantiator buildInstantiator(
org.hibernate.mapping.PersistentClass mappingInfo) {
return new CustomMapInstantiator( mappingInfo );
}
private static final class CustomMapInstantiator

extends org.hibernate.tuple.DynamicMapInstantitor {
// override the generateMap() method to return our custom map...
protected final Map generateMap() {
Hibernate 3.1.1 45
Persistent Classes
return new CustomMap();

}
}
}
TODO: Document user-extension framework in the property and proxy packages
Hibernate 3.1.1 46
Chapter 5. Basic O/R Mapping
5.1. Mapping declaration

Object/relational mappings are usually defined in an XML document. The mapping document is designed to be
readable and hand-editable. The mapping language is Java-centric, meaning that mappings are constructed
around persistent class declarations, not table declarations.
Note that, even though many Hibernate users choose to write the XML by hand, a number of tools exist to gen-
erate the mapping document, including XDoclet, Middlegen and AndroMDA.
Lets kick off with an example mapping:
<hibernate-mapping package="eg">
<class name="Cat"
table="cats"
discriminator-value="C">
<id name="id">
</id>
<discriminator column="subclass"
type="character"/>
<property name="weight"/>
<property name="birthdate"
type="date"
not-null="true"
update="false"/>
<property name="color"
type="eg.types.ColorUserType"
not-null="true"
update="false"/>
<property name="sex"
not-null="true"
update="false"/>
<property name="litterId"
column="litterId"
update="false"/>
<many-to-one name="mother"
column="mother_id"
update="false"/>
<set name="kittens"
inverse="true"
order-by="litter_id">
<key column="mother_id"/>
<one-to-many class="Cat"/>
</set>
<subclass name="DomesticCat"
discriminator-value="D">
Hibernate 3.1.1 47
Basic O/R Mapping
type="string"/>
</subclass>
</class>
<class name="Dog">

</class>
We will now discuss the content of the mapping document. We will only describe the document elements and
attributes that are used by Hibernate at runtime. The mapping document also contains some extra optional at-
tributes and elements that affect the database schemas exported by the schema export tool. (For example the
not-null attribute.)
5.1.1. Doctype
All XML mappings should declare the doctype shown. The actual DTD may be found at the URL above, in the
directory hibernate-x.x.x/src/org/hibernate or in hibernate3.jar. Hibernate will always look for the
DTD in its classpath first. If you experience lookups of the DTD using an Internet connection, check your DTD
declaration against the contents of your claspath.
5.1.2. hibernate-mapping
This element has several optional attributes. The schema and catalog attributes specify that tables referred to in
this mapping belong to the named schema and/or catalog. If specified, tablenames will be qualified by the given
schema and catalog names. If missing, tablenames will be unqualified. The default-cascade attribute specifies
what cascade style should be assumed for properties and collections which do not specify a cascade attribute.
The auto-import attribute lets us use unqualified class names in the query language, by default.
<hibernate-mapping
schema="schemaName" (1)
catalog="catalogName" (2)
default-cascade="cascade_style" (3)
default-access="field|property|ClassName" (4)
default-lazy="true|false" (5)
auto-import="true|false" (6)
package="package.name" (7)
/>
(1) schema (optional): The name of a database schema.

(2) catalog (optional): The name of a database catalog.
(3) default-cascade (optional - defaults to none): A default cascade style.
(4) default-access (optional - defaults to property): The strategy Hibernate should use for accessing all
properties. Can be a custom implementation of PropertyAccessor.
(5) default-lazy (optional - defaults to true): The default value for unspecifed lazy attributes of class and
collection mappings.
(6) auto-import (optional - defaults to true): Specifies whether we can use unqualified class names (of
classes in this mapping) in the query language.
(7) package (optional): Specifies a package prefix to assume for unqualified class names in the mapping doc-
ument.
Hibernate 3.1.1 48
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If you have two persistent classes with the same (unqualified) name, you should set auto-import="false". Hi-
bernate will throw an exception if you attempt to assign two classes to the same "imported" name.
Note that the hibernate-mapping element allows you to nest several persistent <class> mappings, as shown
above. It is however good practice (and expected by some tools) to map only a single persistent class (or a
single class hierarchy) in one mapping file and name it after the persistent superclass, e.g. Cat.hbm.xml,
Dog.hbm.xml, or if using inheritance, Animal.hbm.xml.
5.1.3. class
You may declare a persistent class using the class element:
<class
name="ClassName" (1)
table="tableName" (2)
discriminator-value="discriminator_value" (3)
mutable="true|false" (4)
schema="owner" (5)
catalog="catalog" (6)
proxy="ProxyInterface" (7)
dynamic-update="true|false" (8)
dynamic-insert="true|false" (9)
select-before-update="true|false" (10)
polymorphism="implicit|explicit" (11)
where="arbitrary sql where condition" (12)
persister="PersisterClass" (13)
batch-size="N" (14)
optimistic-lock="none|version|dirty|all" (15)
lazy="true|false" (16)
entity-name="EntityName" (17)
check="arbitrary sql check condition" (18)
rowid="rowid" (19)
subselect="SQL expression" (20)
abstract="true|false" (21)
node="element-name"
/>
(1) name (optional): The fully qualified Java class name of the persistent class (or interface). If this attribute is
missing, it is assumed that the mapping is for a non-POJO entity.
(2) table (optional - defaults to the unqualified class name): The name of its database table.
(3) discriminator-value (optional - defaults to the class name): A value that distiguishes individual sub-
classes, used for polymorphic behaviour. Acceptable values include null and not null.
(4) mutable (optional, defaults to true): Specifies that instances of the class are (not) mutable.
(5) schema (optional): Override the schema name specified by the root <hibernate-mapping> element.
(6) catalog (optional): Override the catalog name specified by the root <hibernate-mapping> element.
(7) proxy (optional): Specifies an interface to use for lazy initializing proxies. You may specify the name of
the class itself.
(8) dynamic-update (optional, defaults to false): Specifies that UPDATE SQL should be generated at runtime
and contain only those columns whose values have changed.
(9) dynamic-insert (optional, defaults to false): Specifies that INSERT SQL should be generated at runtime
and contain only the columns whose values are not null.
(10) select-before-update (optional, defaults to false): Specifies that Hibernate should never perform an
SQL UPDATE unless it is certain that an object is actually modified. In certain cases (actually, only when a
transient object has been associated with a new session using update()), this means that Hibernate will
perform an extra SQL SELECT to determine if an UPDATE is actually required.
(11) polymorphism (optional, defaults to implicit): Determines whether implicit or explicit query polymorph-
ism is used.
(12) where (optional) specify an arbitrary SQL WHERE condition to be used when retrieving objects of this class
Hibernate 3.1.1 49
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(13) persister (optional): Specifies a custom ClassPersister.

(14) batch-size (optional, defaults to 1) specify a "batch size" for fetching instances of this class by identifier.
(15) optimistic-lock (optional, defaults to version): Determines the optimistic locking strategy.
(16) lazy (optional): Lazy fetching may be completely disabled by setting lazy="false".
(17) entity-name (optional, defaults to the class name): Hibernate3 allows a class to be mapped multiple times
(to different tables, potentially), and allows entity mappings that are represented by Maps or XML at the
Java level. In these cases, you should provide an explicit arbitrary name for the entity. See Section 4.4,
“Dynamic models” and Chapter 18, XML Mapping for more information.
(18) check (optional): A SQL expression used to generate a multi-row check constraint for automatic schema
generation.
(19) rowid (optional): Hibernate can use so called ROWIDs on databases which support. E.g. on Oracle, Hi-
bernate can use the rowid extra column for fast updates if you set this option to rowid. A ROWID is an
implementation detail and represents the physical location of a stored tuple.
(20) subselect (optional): Maps an immutable and read-only entity to a database subselect. Useful if you want
to have a view instead of a base table, but don't. See below for more information.
(21) abstract (optional): Used to mark abstract superclasses in <union-subclass> hierarchies.
It is perfectly acceptable for the named persistent class to be an interface. You would then declare implement-
ing classes of that interface using the <subclass> element. You may persist any static inner class. You should
specify the class name using the standard form ie. eg.Foo$Bar.
Immutable classes, mutable="false", may not be updated or deleted by the application. This allows Hibernate
to make some minor performance optimizations.
The optional proxy attribute enables lazy initialization of persistent instances of the class. Hibernate will ini-
tially return CGLIB proxies which implement the named interface. The actual persistent object will be loaded
when a method of the proxy is invoked. See "Proxies for Lazy Initialization" below.
Implicit polymorphism means that instances of the class will be returned by a query that names any superclass
or implemented interface or the class and that instances of any subclass of the class will be returned by a query
that names the class itself. Explicit polymorphism means that class instances will be returned only by queries
that explicitly name that class and that queries that name the class will return only instances of subclasses
mapped inside this <class> declaration as a <subclass> or <joined-subclass>. For most purposes the default,
polymorphism="implicit", is appropriate. Explicit polymorphism is useful when two different classes are
mapped to the same table (this allows a "lightweight" class that contains a subset of the table columns).
The persister attribute lets you customize the persistence strategy used for the class. You may, for example,
specify your own subclass of org.hibernate.persister.EntityPersister or you might even provide a com-
pletely new implementation of the interface org.hibernate.persister.ClassPersister that implements per-
sistence via, for example, stored procedure calls, serialization to flat files or LDAP. See
org.hibernate.test.CustomPersister for a simple example (of "persistence" to a Hashtable).
Note that the dynamic-update and dynamic-insert settings are not inherited by subclasses and so may also be
specified on the <subclass> or <joined-subclass> elements. These settings may increase performance in
some cases, but might actually decrease performance in others. Use judiciously.
Use of select-before-update will usually decrease performance. It is very useful to prevent a database update
trigger being called unnecessarily if you reattach a graph of detached instances to a Session.
If you enable dynamic-update, you will have a choice of optimistic locking strategies:
• version check the version/timestamp columns
• all check all columns
Hibernate 3.1.1 50
Basic O/R Mapping
• dirty check the changed columns, allowing some concurrent updates
• none do not use optimistic locking
We very strongly recommend that you use version/timestamp columns for optimistic locking with Hibernate.
This is the optimal strategy with respect to performance and is the only strategy that correctly handles modific-
ations made to detached instances (ie. when Session.merge() is used).
There is no difference between a view and a base table for a Hibernate mapping, as expected this is transparent
at the database level (note that some DBMS don't support views properly, especially with updates). Sometimes
you want to use a view, but can't create one in the database (ie. with a legacy schema). In this case, you can
map an immutable and read-only entity to a given SQL subselect expression:
<class name="Summary">
<subselect>
select item.name, max(bid.amount), count(*)
from item
join bid on bid.item_id = item.id
group by item.name
</subselect>
<synchronize table="item"/>
<synchronize table="bid"/>
<id name="name"/>
...
</class>
Declare the tables to synchronize this entity with, ensuring that auto-flush happens correctly, and that queries
against the derived entity do not return stale data. The <subselect> is available as both as an attribute and a
nested mapping element.
5.1.4. id
Mapped classes must declare the primary key column of the database table. Most classes will also have a Java-
Beans-style property holding the unique identifier of an instance. The <id> element defines the mapping from
that property to the primary key column.
<id
name="propertyName" (1)
type="typename" (2)
column="column_name" (3)
unsaved-value="null|any|none|undefined|id_value" (4)
access="field|property|ClassName"> (5)
node="element-name|@attribute-name|element/@attribute|."
<generator class="generatorClass"/>
</id>
(1) name (optional): The name of the identifier property.

(2) type (optional): A name that indicates the Hibernate type.
(3) column (optional - defaults to the property name): The name of the primary key column.
(4) unsaved-value (optional - defaults to a "sensible" value): An identifier property value that indicates that
an instance is newly instantiated (unsaved), distinguishing it from detached instances that were saved or
loaded in a previous session.
(5) access (optional - defaults to property): The strategy Hibernate should use for accessing the property
value.
If the name attribute is missing, it is assumed that the class has no identifier property.
Hibernate 3.1.1 51
Basic O/R Mapping
The unsaved-value attribute is almost never needed in Hibernate3.
There is an alternative <composite-id> declaration to allow access to legacy data with composite keys. We
strongly discourage its use for anything else.
Generator
The optional <generator> child element names a Java class used to generate unique identifiers for instances of
the persistent class. If any parameters are required to configure or initialize the generator instance, they are
passed using the <param> element.
<id name="id" type="long" column="cat_id">

<generator class="org.hibernate.id.TableHiLoGenerator">
<param name="table">uid_table</param>
<param name="column">next_hi_value_column</param>
</generator>
</id>
All generators implement the interface org.hibernate.id.IdentifierGenerator. This is a very simple inter-
face; some applications may choose to provide their own specialized implementations. However, Hibernate
provides a range of built-in implementations. There are shortcut names for the built-in generators:
increment
generates identifiers of type long, short or int that are unique only when no other process is inserting data
into the same table. Do not use in a cluster.
identity
supports identity columns in DB2, MySQL, MS SQL Server, Sybase and HypersonicSQL. The returned
identifier is of type long, short or int.
sequence
uses a sequence in DB2, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SAP DB, McKoi or a generator in Interbase. The returned
identifier is of type long, short or int
hilo
uses a hi/lo algorithm to efficiently generate identifiers of type long, short or int, given a table and
column (by default hibernate_unique_key and next_hi respectively) as a source of hi values. The hi/lo al-
gorithm generates identifiers that are unique only for a particular database.
seqhilo
uses a hi/lo algorithm to efficiently generate identifiers of type long, short or int, given a named database
sequence.
uuid
uses a 128-bit UUID algorithm to generate identifiers of type string, unique within a network (the IP ad-
dress is used). The UUID is encoded as a string of hexadecimal digits of length 32.
guid
uses a database-generated GUID string on MS SQL Server and MySQL.
native
picks identity, sequence or hilo depending upon the capabilities of the underlying database.
assigned
lets the application to assign an identifier to the object before save() is called. This is the default strategy if
Hibernate 3.1.1 52
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no <generator> element is specified.
select
retrieves a primary key assigned by a database trigger by selecting the row by some unique key and retriev-
ing the primary key value.
foreign
uses the identifier of another associated object. Usually used in conjunction with a <one-to-one> primary
key association.
Hi/lo algorithm
The hilo and seqhilo generators provide two alternate implementations of the hi/lo algorithm, a favorite ap-
proach to identifier generation. The first implementation requires a "special" database table to hold the next
available "hi" value. The second uses an Oracle-style sequence (where supported).

<generator class="hilo">
<param name="table">hi_value</param>
<param name="column">next_value</param>
<param name="max_lo">100</param>
</generator>
</id>

<generator class="seqhilo">
<param name="sequence">hi_value</param>
<param name="max_lo">100</param>
</generator>
</id>
Unfortunately, you can't use hilo when supplying your own Connection to Hibernate. When Hibernate is using
an application server datasource to obtain connections enlisted with JTA, you must properly configure the hi-
bernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class.
UUID algorithm
The UUID contains: IP address, startup time of the JVM (accurate to a quarter second), system time and a
counter value (unique within the JVM). It's not possible to obtain a MAC address or memory address from Java
code, so this is the best we can do without using JNI.
Identity columns and sequences
For databases which support identity columns (DB2, MySQL, Sybase, MS SQL), you may use identity key
generation. For databases that support sequences (DB2, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Interbase, McKoi, SAP DB) you
may use sequence style key generation. Both these strategies require two SQL queries to insert a new object.
<id name="id" type="long" column="person_id">

<generator class="sequence">
<param name="sequence">person_id_sequence</param>
</generator>
</id>
<id name="id" type="long" column="person_id" unsaved-value="0">

<generator class="identity"/>
</id>
For cross-platform development, the native strategy will choose from the identity, sequence and hilo
Hibernate 3.1.1 53
Basic O/R Mapping
strategies, dependant upon the capabilities of the underlying database.
Assigned identifiers
If you want the application to assign identifiers (as opposed to having Hibernate generate them), you may use
the assigned generator. This special generator will use the identifier value already assigned to the object's iden-
tifier property. This generator is used when the primary key is a natural key instead of a surrogate key. This is
the default behavior if you do no specify a <generator> element.
Choosing the assigned generator makes Hibernate use unsaved-value="undefined", forcing Hibernate to go
to the database to determine if an instance is transient or detached, unless there is a version or timestamp prop-
erty, or you define Interceptor.isUnsaved().
Primary keys assigned by triggers
For legacy schemas only (Hibernate does not generate DDL with triggers).
<id name="id" type="long" column="person_id">

<generator class="select">
<param name="key">socialSecurityNumber</param>
</generator>
</id>
In the above example, there is a unique valued property named socialSecurityNumber defined by the class, as
a natural key, and a surrogate key named person_id whose value is generated by a trigger.
5.1.5. composite-id
<composite-id
name="propertyName"
class="ClassName"
mapped="true|false"
access="field|property|ClassName">
node="element-name|."
<key-property name="propertyName" type="typename" column="column_name"/>

<key-many-to-one name="propertyName class="ClassName" column="column_name"/>
......
</composite-id>
For a table with a composite key, you may map multiple properties of the class as identifier properties. The
<composite-id> element accepts <key-property> property mappings and <key-many-to-one> mappings as
child elements.
<composite-id>
<key-property name="medicareNumber"/>
<key-property name="dependent"/>
</composite-id>
Your persistent class must override equals() and hashCode() to implement composite identifier equality. It
must also implements Serializable.
Unfortunately, this approach to composite identifiers means that a persistent object is its own identifier. There
is no convenient "handle" other than the object itself. You must instantiate an instance of the persistent class it-
self and populate its identifier properties before you can load() the persistent state associated with a composite
key. We call this approach an embedded composite identifier, and discourage it for serious applications.
A second approach is what we call a mapped composite identifier, where the identifier properties named inside
Hibernate 3.1.1 54
Basic O/R Mapping
the <composite-id> element are duplicated on both the persistent class and a separate identifier class.
<composite-id class="MedicareId" mapped="true">

<key-property name="medicareNumber"/>
<key-property name="dependent"/>
</composite-id>
In this example, both the composite identifier class, MedicareId, and the entity class itself have properties
named medicareNumber and dependent. The identifier class must override equals() and hashCode() and im-
plement. Serializable. The disadvantage of this approach is quite obvious—code duplication.
The following attributes are used to specify a mapped composite identifier:
• mapped (optional, defaults to false): indicates that a mapped composite identifier is used, and that the con-
tained property mappings refer to both the entity class and the composite identifier class.
• class (optional, but required for a mapped composite identifier): The class used as a composite identifier.
We will describe a third, even more convenient approach where the composite identifier is implemented as a
component class in Section 8.4, “Components as composite identifiers”. The attributes described below apply
only to this alternative approach:
• name (optional, required for this approach): A property of component type that holds the composite identifi-
er (see chapter 9).
• access (optional - defaults to property): The strategy Hibernate should use for accessing the property
value.
• class (optional - defaults to the property type determined by reflection): The component class used as a
composite identifier (see next section).
This third approach, an identifier component is the one we recommend for almost all applications.
5.1.6. discriminator
The <discriminator> element is required for polymorphic persistence using the table-per-class-hierarchy map-
ping strategy and declares a discriminator column of the table. The discriminator column contains marker val-
ues that tell the persistence layer what subclass to instantiate for a particular row. A restricted set of types may
be used: string, character, integer, byte, short, boolean, yes_no, true_false.
<discriminator
column="discriminator_column" (1)
type="discriminator_type" (2)
force="true|false" (3)
insert="true|false" (4)
formula="arbitrary sql expression" (5)
/>
(1) column (optional - defaults to class) the name of the discriminator column.
(2) type (optional - defaults to string) a name that indicates the Hibernate type
(3) force (optional - defaults to false) "force" Hibernate to specify allowed discriminator values even when
retrieving all instances of the root class.
(4) insert (optional - defaults to true) set this to false if your discriminator column is also part of a mapped
composite identifier. (Tells Hibernate to not include the column in SQL INSERTs.)
(5) formula (optional) an arbitrary SQL expression that is executed when a type has to be evaluated. Allows
content-based discrimination.
Actual values of the discriminator column are specified by the discriminator-value attribute of the <class>
and <subclass> elements.
Hibernate 3.1.1 55
Basic O/R Mapping
The force attribute is (only) useful if the table contains rows with "extra" discriminator values that are not
mapped to a persistent class. This will not usually be the case.
Using the formula attribute you can declare an arbitrary SQL expression that will be used to evaluate the type
of a row:
<discriminator
formula="case when CLASS_TYPE in ('a', 'b', 'c') then 0 else 1 end"
type="integer"/>
5.1.7. version (optional)
The <version> element is optional and indicates that the table contains versioned data. This is particularly use-
ful if you plan to use long transactions (see below).
<version
column="version_column" (1)
type="typename" (3)
access="field|property|ClassName" (4)
unsaved-value="null|negative|undefined" (5)
generated="never|always" (6)
/>
(1) column (optional - defaults to the property name): The name of the column holding the version number.
(2) name: The name of a property of the persistent class.
(3) type (optional - defaults to integer): The type of the version number.
value.
(5) unsaved-value (optional - defaults to undefined): A version property value that indicates that an instance
is newly instantiated (unsaved), distinguishing it from detached instances that were saved or loaded in a
previous session. (undefined specifies that the identifier property value should be used.)
(6) generated (optional - defaults to never): Specifies that this version property value is actually generated
by the database. See the discussion of Section 5.6, “Generated Properties”.
(7) insert (optional - defaults to true): Specifies whether the version column should be included in SQL in-
sert statements. May be set to false if and only if the database column is defined with a default value of
0.
Version numbers may be of Hibernate type long, integer, short, timestamp or calendar.
A version or timestamp property should never be null for a detached instance, so Hibernate will detact any in-
stance with a null version or timestamp as transient, no matter what other unsaved-value strategies are spe-
cified. Declaring a nullable version or timestamp property is an easy way to avoid any problems with transitive
reattachment in Hibernate, especially useful for people using assigned identifiers or composite keys!
5.1.8. timestamp (optional)
The optional <timestamp> element indicates that the table contains timestamped data. This is intended as an al-
ternative to versioning. Timestamps are by nature a less safe implementation of optimistic locking. However,
sometimes the application might use the timestamps in other ways.
<timestamp
column="timestamp_column" (1)
Hibernate 3.1.1 56
Basic O/R Mapping
unsaved-value="null|undefined" (4)
source="vm|db" (5)
generated="never|always" (6)
/>
(1) column (optional - defaults to the property name): The name of a column holding the timestamp.
(2) name: The name of a JavaBeans style property of Java type Date or Timestamp of the persistent class.
value.
(4) unsaved-value (optional - defaults to null): A version property value that indicates that an instance is
newly instantiated (unsaved), distinguishing it from detached instances that were saved or loaded in a pre-
vious session. (undefined specifies that the identifier property value should be used.)
(5) source (optional - defaults to vm): From where should Hibernate retrieve the timestamp value? From the
database, or from the current JVM? Database-based timestamps incur an overhead because Hibernate
must hit the database in order to determine the "next value", but will be safer for use in clustered environ-
ments. Note also, that not all Dialects are known to support retrieving of the database's current
timestamp, while others might be unsafe for usage in locking due to lack of precision (Oracle 8 for ex-
ample).
(6) generated (optional - defaults to never): Specifies that this timestamp property value is actually gener-
ated by the database. See the discussion of Section 5.6, “Generated Properties”.
Note that <timestamp> is equivalent to <version type="timestamp">. And <timestamp use-db="true"> is

equivalent to <version type="dbtimestamp">
5.1.9. property
The <property> element declares a persistent, JavaBean style property of the class.
<property
type="typename" (3)
update="true|false" (4)
formula="arbitrary SQL expression" (5)
unique="true|false" (8)
not-null="true|false" (9)
optimistic-lock="true|false" (10)
generated="never|insert|always" (11)
index="index_name"
unique_key="unique_key_id"
length="L"
precision="P"
scale="S"
/>
(1) name: the name of the property, with an initial lowercase letter.
(2) column (optional - defaults to the property name): the name of the mapped database table column. This
may also be specified by nested <column> element(s).
(3) type (optional): a name that indicates the Hibernate type.
(4) update, insert (optional - defaults to true) : specifies that the mapped columns should be included in
SQL UPDATE and/or INSERT statements. Setting both to false allows a pure "derived" property whose
value is initialized from some other property that maps to the same colum(s) or by a trigger or other ap-
Hibernate 3.1.1 57
Basic O/R Mapping
plication.
(5) formula (optional): an SQL expression that defines the value for a computed property. Computed proper-
ties do not have a column mapping of their own.
value.
(7) lazy (optional - defaults to false): Specifies that this property should be fetched lazily when the instance
variable is first accessed (requires build-time bytecode instrumentation).
(8) unique (optional): Enable the DDL generation of a unique constraint for the columns. Also, allow this to
be the target of a property-ref.
(9) not-null (optional): Enable the DDL generation of a nullability constraint for the columns.
(10) optimistic-lock (optional - defaults to true): Specifies that updates to this property do or do not require
acquisition of the optimistic lock. In other words, determines if a version increment should occur when
this property is dirty.
(11) generated (optional - defaults to never): Specifies that this property value is actually generated by the
database. See the discussion of Section 5.6, “Generated Properties”.
typename could be:
1. The name of a Hibernate basic type (eg. integer, string, character, date, timestamp, float,
binary, serializable, object, blob).
2. The name of a Java class with a default basic type (eg. int, float, char, java.lang.String,
java.util.Date, java.lang.Integer, java.sql.Clob).
3. The name of a serializable Java class.
4. The class name of a custom type (eg. com.illflow.type.MyCustomType).
If you do not specify a type, Hibernate will use reflection upon the named property to take a guess at the correct
Hibernate type. Hibernate will try to interpret the name of the return class of the property getter using rules 2, 3,
4 in that order. However, this is not always enough. In certain cases you will still need the type attribute. (For
example, to distinguish between Hibernate.DATE and Hibernate.TIMESTAMP, or to specify a custom type.)
The access attribute lets you control how Hibernate will access the property at runtime. By default, Hibernate
will call the property get/set pair. If you specify access="field", Hibernate will bypass the get/set pair and ac-
cess the field directly, using reflection. You may specify your own strategy for property access by naming a
class that implements the interface org.hibernate.property.PropertyAccessor.
An especially powerful feature are derived properties. These properties are by definition read-only, the property
value is computed at load time. You declare the computation as a SQL expression, this translates to a SELECT
clause subquery in the SQL query that loads an instance:
<property name="totalPrice"
formula="( SELECT SUM (li.quantity*p.price) FROM LineItem li, Product p
WHERE li.productId = p.productId
AND li.customerId = customerId
AND li.orderNumber = orderNumber )"/>
Note that you can reference the entities own table by not declaring an alias on a particular column (customerId
in the given example). Also note that you can use the nested <formula> mapping element if you don't like to
use the attribute.
5.1.10. many-to-one
An ordinary association to another persistent class is declared using a many-to-one element. The relational
model is a many-to-one association: a foreign key in one table is referencing the primary key column(s) of the
target table.
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<many-to-one
class="ClassName" (3)
cascade="cascade_style" (4)
fetch="join|select" (5)
property-ref="propertyNameFromAssociatedClass" (7)
lazy="proxy|no-proxy|false" (12)
not-found="ignore|exception" (13)
formula="arbitrary SQL expression" (15)
embed-xml="true|false"
index="index_name"
unique_key="unique_key_id"
foreign-key="foreign_key_name"
/>
(1) name: The name of the property.

(2) column (optional): The name of the foreign key column. This may also be specified by nested <column>
element(s).
(3) class (optional - defaults to the property type determined by reflection): The name of the associated
class.
(4) cascade (optional): Specifies which operations should be cascaded from the parent object to the associ-
ated object.
(5) fetch (optional - defaults to select): Chooses between outer-join fetching or sequential select fetching.
(6) update, insert (optional - defaults to true) specifies that the mapped columns should be included in
SQL UPDATE and/or INSERT statements. Setting both to false allows a pure "derived" association whose
value is initialized from some other property that maps to the same colum(s) or by a trigger or other ap-
plication.
(7) property-ref: (optional) The name of a property of the associated class that is joined to this foreign key.
If not specified, the primary key of the associated class is used.
value.
(9) unique (optional): Enable the DDL generation of a unique constraint for the foreign-key column. Also, al-
low this to be the target of a property-ref. This makes the association multiplicity effectively one to one.
(10) not-null (optional): Enable the DDL generation of a nullability constraint for the foreign key columns.
acquisition of the optimistic lock. In other words, dertermines if a version increment should occur when
this property is dirty.
(12) lazy (optional - defaults to proxy): By default, single point associations are proxied. lazy="no-proxy"
specifies that the property should be fetched lazily when the instance variable is first accessed (requires
build-time bytecode instrumentation). lazy="false" specifies that the association will always be eagerly
fetched.
(13) not-found (optional - defaults to exception): Specifies how foreign keys that reference missing rows will
be handled: ignore will treat a missing row as a null association.
(14) entity-name (optional): The entity name of the associated class.
Setting a value of the cascade attribute to any meaningful value other than none will propagate certain opera-
tions to the associated object. The meaningful values are the names of Hibernate's basic operations, persist,
merge, delete, save-update, evict, replicate, lock, refresh, as well as the special values delete-
orphan and all and comma-separated combinations of operation names, for example, cas-
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cade="persist,merge,evict" or cascade="all,delete-orphan". See Section 10.11, “Transitive persistence”

for a full explanation. Note that single valued associations (many-to-one and one-to-one associations) do not
support orphan delete.
A typical many-to-one declaration looks as simple as this:
<many-to-one name="product" class="Product" column="PRODUCT_ID"/>
The property-ref attribute should only be used for mapping legacy data where a foreign key refers to a unique
key of the associated table other than the primary key. This is an ugly relational model. For example, suppose
the Product class had a unique serial number, that is not the primary key. (The unique attribute controls Hi-
bernate's DDL generation with the SchemaExport tool.)
<property name="serialNumber" unique="true" type="string" column="SERIAL_NUMBER"/>
Then the mapping for OrderItem might use:
<many-to-one name="product" property-ref="serialNumber" column="PRODUCT_SERIAL_NUMBER"/>
This is certainly not encouraged, however.
If the referenced unique key comprises multiple properties of the associated entity, you should map the refer-
enced properties inside a named <properties> element.
If the referenced unique key is the property of a component, you may specify a property path:
<many-to-one name="owner" property-ref="identity.ssn" column="OWNER_SSN"/>
5.1.11. one-to-one
A one-to-one association to another persistent class is declared using a one-to-one element.
<one-to-one
constrained="true|false" (4)
formula="any SQL expression" (8)
lazy="proxy|no-proxy|false" (9)
foreign-key="foreign_key_name"
/>

(2) class (optional - defaults to the property type determined by reflection): The name of the associated
class.
(3) cascade (optional) specifies which operations should be cascaded from the parent object to the associated
object.
(4) constrained (optional) specifies that a foreign key constraint on the primary key of the mapped table ref-
erences the table of the associated class. This option affects the order in which save() and delete() are
cascaded, and determines whether the association may be proxied (it is also used by the schema export
tool).
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(5) fetch (optional - defaults to select): Chooses between outer-join fetching or sequential select fetching.
(6) property-ref: (optional) The name of a property of the associated class that is joined to the primary key
of this class. If not specified, the primary key of the associated class is used.
value.
(8) formula (optional): Almost all one to one associations map to the primary key of the owning entity. In the
rare case that this is not the case, you may specify a some other column, columns or expression to join on
using an SQL formula. (See org.hibernate.test.onetooneformula for an example.)
(9) lazy (optional - defaults to proxy): By default, single point associations are proxied. lazy="no-proxy"
specifies that the property should be fetched lazily when the instance variable is first accessed (requires
build-time bytecode instrumentation). lazy="false" specifies that the association will always be eagerly
fetched. Note that if constrained="false", proxying is impossible and Hibernate will eager fetch the as-
sociation!
(10) entity-name (optional): The entity name of the associated class.
There are two varieties of one-to-one association:
• primary key associations
• unique foreign key associations
Primary key associations don't need an extra table column; if two rows are related by the association then the
two table rows share the same primary key value. So if you want two objects to be related by a primary key as-
sociation, you must make sure that they are assigned the same identifier value!
For a primary key association, add the following mappings to Employee and Person, respectively.
<one-to-one name="person" class="Person"/>
<one-to-one name="employee" class="Employee" constrained="true"/>
Now we must ensure that the primary keys of related rows in the PERSON and EMPLOYEE tables are equal.
We use a special Hibernate identifier generation strategy called foreign:
<class name="person" table="PERSON">

<generator class="foreign">
<param name="property">employee</param>
</generator>
</id>
...
<one-to-one name="employee"
class="Employee"
constrained="true"/>
</class>
A newly saved instance of Person is then assigned the same primary key value as the Employee instance refered
with the employee property of that Person.
Alternatively, a foreign key with a unique constraint, from Employee to Person, may be expressed as:
<many-to-one name="person" class="Person" column="PERSON_ID" unique="true"/>
And this association may be made bidirectional by adding the following to the Person mapping:
<one-to-one name"employee" class="Employee" property-ref="person"/>
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5.1.12. natural-id
<natural-id mutable="true|false"/>
<property ... />
<many-to-one ... />
......
</natural-id>
Even though we recommend the use of surrogate keys as primary keys, you should still try to identify natural
keys for all entities. A natural key is a property or combination of properties that is unique and non-null. If it is
also immutable, even better. Map the properties of the natural key inside the <natural-id> element. Hibernate
will generate the necessary unique key and nullability constraints, and your mapping will be more self-
documenting.
We strongly recommend that you implement equals() and hashCode() to compare the natural key properties
of the entity.
This mapping is not intended for use with entities with natural primary keys.
• mutable (optional, defaults to false): By default, natural identifier properties as assumed to be immutable
(constant).
5.1.13. component, dynamic-component
The <component> element maps properties of a child object to columns of the table of a parent class. Compon-
ents may, in turn, declare their own properties, components or collections. See "Components" below.
<component
class="className" (2)
>
<property ...../>
<many-to-one .... />
........
</component>

(2) class (optional - defaults to the property type determined by reflection): The name of the component
(child) class.
(3) insert: Do the mapped columns appear in SQL INSERTs?
(4) update: Do the mapped columns appear in SQL UPDATEs?
value.
(6) lazy (optional - defaults to false): Specifies that this component should be fetched lazily when the in-
stance variable is first accessed (requires build-time bytecode instrumentation).
(7) optimistic-lock (optional - defaults to true): Specifies that updates to this component do or do not re-
quire acquisition of the optimistic lock. In other words, determines if a version increment should occur
when this property is dirty.
(8) unique (optional - defaults to false): Specifies that a unique constraint exists upon all mapped columns
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of the component.
The child <property> tags map properties of the child class to table columns.
The <component> element allows a <parent> subelement that maps a property of the component class as a ref-
erence back to the containing entity.
The <dynamic-component> element allows a Map to be mapped as a component, where the property names refer
to keys of the map, see Section 8.5, “Dynamic components”.
5.1.14. properties
The <properties> element allows the definition of a named, logical grouping of properties of a class. The most
important use of the construct is that it allows a combination of properties to be the target of a property-ref. It
is also a convenient way to define a multi-column unique constraint.
<properties
name="logicalName" (1)
>
<property ...../>
<many-to-one .... />
........
</properties>
(1) name: The logical name of the grouping - not an actual property name.
(2) insert: Do the mapped columns appear in SQL INSERTs?
(3) update: Do the mapped columns appear in SQL UPDATEs?
(4) optimistic-lock (optional - defaults to true): Specifies that updates to these properties do or do not re-
quire acquisition of the optimistic lock. In other words, determines if a version increment should occur
when these properties are dirty.
(5) unique (optional - defaults to false): Specifies that a unique constraint exists upon all mapped columns
of the component.
For example, if we have the following <properties> mapping:
<class name="Person">
<id name="personNumber"/>
...
<properties name="name"
unique="true" update="false">
<property name="firstName"/>
<property name="initial"/>
<property name="lastName"/>
</properties>
</class>
Then we might have some legacy data association which refers to this unique key of the Person table, instead
of to the primary key:
<many-to-one name="person"
class="Person" property-ref="name">
<column name="firstName"/>
<column name="initial"/>
<column name="lastName"/>
</many-to-one>
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We don't recommend the use of this kind of thing outside the context of mapping legacy data.
5.1.15. subclass
Finally, polymorphic persistence requires the declaration of each subclass of the root persistent class. For the
table-per-class-hierarchy mapping strategy, the <subclass> declaration is used.
<subclass
discriminator-value="discriminator_value" (2)
dynamic-update="true|false"
dynamic-insert="true|false"
entity-name="EntityName"
node="element-name"
extends="SuperclassName">
<property .... />

.....
</subclass>
(1) name: The fully qualified class name of the subclass.

(2) discriminator-value (optional - defaults to the class name): A value that distiguishes individual sub-
classes.
(3) proxy (optional): Specifies a class or interface to use for lazy initializing proxies.
(4) lazy (optional, defaults to true): Setting lazy="false" disables the use of lazy fetching.
Each subclass should declare its own persistent properties and subclasses. <version> and <id> properties are
assumed to be inherited from the root class. Each subclass in a heirarchy must define a unique discriminator-
value. If none is specified, the fully qualified Java class name is used.
For information about inheritance mappings, see Chapter 9, Inheritance Mapping.
5.1.16. joined-subclass
Alternatively, each subclass may be mapped to its own table (table-per-subclass mapping strategy). Inherited
state is retrieved by joining with the table of the superclass. We use the <joined-subclass> element.
<joined-subclass
table="tablename" (2)
schema="schema"
catalog="catalog"
extends="SuperclassName"
persister="ClassName"
subselect="SQL expression"
node="element-name">
<key .... >
<property .... />

.....
</joined-subclass>
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(2) table: The name of the subclass table.
No discriminator column is required for this mapping strategy. Each subclass must, however, declare a table
column holding the object identifier using the <key> element. The mapping at the start of the chapter would be
re-written as:
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD//EN"
<class name="Cat" table="CATS">

<id name="id" column="uid" type="long">
<generator class="hilo"/>
</id>
<property name="birthdate" type="date"/>
<property name="color" not-null="true"/>
<property name="sex" not-null="true"/>
<property name="weight"/>
<many-to-one name="mate"/>
<set name="kittens">
<key column="MOTHER"/>
<one-to-many class="Cat"/>
</set>
<joined-subclass name="DomesticCat" table="DOMESTIC_CATS">
<key column="CAT"/>
<property name="name" type="string"/>
</joined-subclass>
</class>
<class name="eg.Dog">

</class>
5.1.17. union-subclass
A third option is to map only the concrete classes of an inheritance hierarchy to tables, (the table-
per-concrete-class strategy) where each table defines all persistent state of the class, including inherited state. In
Hibernate, it is not absolutely necessary to explicitly map such inheritance hierarchies. You can simply map
each class with a separate <class> declaration. However, if you wish use polymorphic associations (e.g. an as-
sociation to the superclass of your hierarchy), you need to use the <union-subclass> mapping.
<union-subclass
schema="schema"
catalog="catalog"
extends="SuperclassName"
abstract="true|false"
persister="ClassName"
subselect="SQL expression"
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node="element-name">
<property .... />

.....
</union-subclass>

(2) table: The name of the subclass table.
No discriminator column or key column is required for this mapping strategy.
5.1.18. join
Using the <join> element, it is possible to map properties of one class to several tables.
<join
schema="owner" (2)
catalog="catalog" (3)
inverse="true|false" (5)
optional="true|false"> (6)
<key ... />
<property ... />

...
</join>
(1) table: The name of the joined table.

(2) schema (optional): Override the schema name specified by the root <hibernate-mapping> element.
(3) catalog (optional): Override the catalog name specified by the root <hibernate-mapping> element.
(4) fetch (optional - defaults to join): If set to join, the default, Hibernate will use an inner join to retrieve a
<join> defined by a class or its superclasses and an outer join for a <join> defined by a subclass. If set to
select then Hibernate will use a sequential select for a <join> defined on a subclass, which will be is-
sued only if a row turns out to represent an instance of the subclass. Inner joins will still be used to re-
trieve a <join> defined by the class and its superclasses.
(5) inverse (optional - defaults to false): If enabled, Hibernate will not try to insert or update the properties
defined by this join.
(6) optional (optional - defaults to false): If enabled, 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.
For example, the address information for a person can be mapped to a separate table (while preserving value
type semantics for all properties):
<class name="Person"
table="PERSON">
<id name="id" column="PERSON_ID">...</id>
<join table="ADDRESS">
<key column="ADDRESS_ID"/>
<property name="address"/>
<property name="zip"/>
<property name="country"/>
</join>
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...
This feature is often only useful for legacy data models, we recommend fewer tables than classes and a fine-
grained domain model. However, it is useful for switching between inheritance mapping strategies in a single
hierarchy, as explained later.
5.1.19. key
We've seen the <key> element crop up a few times now. It appears anywhere the parent mapping element
defines a join to a new table, and defines the foreign key in the joined table, that references the primary key of
the original table.
<key
column="columnname" (1)
on-delete="noaction|cascade" (2)
property-ref="propertyName" (3)
/>
(1) column (optional): The name of the foreign key column. This may also be specified by nested <column>
element(s).
(2) on-delete (optional, defaults to noaction): Specifies whether the foreign key constraint has database-
level cascade delete enabled.
(3) property-ref (optional): Specifies that the foreign key refers to columns that are not the primary key of
the orginal table. (Provided for legacy data.)
(4) not-null (optional): Specifies that the foreign key columns are not nullable (this is implied whenever the
foreign key is also part of the primary key).
(5) update (optional): Specifies that the foreign key should never be updated (this is implied whenever the
foreign key is also part of the primary key).
(6) unique (optional): Specifies that the foreign key should have a unique constraint (this is implied whenever
the foreign key is also the primary key).
We recommend that for systems where delete performance is important, all keys should be defined on-de-
lete="cascade", and Hibernate will use a database-level ON CASCADE DELETE constraint, instead of many indi-
vidual DELETE statements. Be aware that this feature bypasses Hibernate's usual optimistic locking strategy for
versioned data.
The not-null and update attributes are useful when mapping a unidirectional one to many association. If you
map a unidirectional one to many to a non-nullable foreign key, you must declare the key column using <key
not-null="true">.
5.1.20. column and formula elements
Any mapping element which accepts a column attribute will alternatively accept a <column> subelement. Like-
wise, <formula> is an alternative to the formula attribute.
<column
name="column_name"
length="N"
precision="N"
scale="N"
not-null="true|false"
unique="true|false"
unique-key="multicolumn_unique_key_name"
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index="index_name"
sql-type="sql_type_name"
check="SQL expression"
default="SQL expression"/>
<formula>SQL expression</formula>
column and formula attributes may even be combined within the same property or association mapping to ex-
press, for example, exotic join conditions.
<many-to-one name="homeAddress" class="Address"

insert="false" update="false">
<column name="person_id" not-null="true" length="10"/>
<formula>'MAILING'</formula>
</many-to-one>
5.1.21. import
Suppose your application has two persistent classes with the same name, and you don't want to specify the fully
qualified (package) name in Hibernate queries. Classes may be "imported" explicitly, rather than relying upon
auto-import="true". You may even import classes and interfaces that are not explicitly mapped.
<import class="java.lang.Object" rename="Universe"/>
<import
rename="ShortName" (2)
/>
(1) class: The fully qualified class name of of any Java class.
(2) rename (optional - defaults to the unqualified class name): A name that may be used in the query lan-
guage.
5.1.22. any
There is one further type of property mapping. The <any> mapping element 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 map-
ping (polymorphic) associations. You should use this only in very special cases (eg. audit logs, user session
data, etc).
The meta-type attribute lets the application specify a custom type that maps database column values to persist-
ent classes which have identifier properties of the type specified by id-type. You must specify the mapping
from values of the meta-type to class names.
<any name="being" id-type="long" meta-type="string">

<meta-value value="TBL_ANIMAL" class="Animal"/>
<meta-value value="TBL_HUMAN" class="Human"/>
<meta-value value="TBL_ALIEN" class="Alien"/>
<column name="table_name"/>
<column name="id"/>
</any>
<any
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id-type="idtypename" (2)
meta-type="metatypename" (3)
>
<meta-value ... />
<meta-value ... />
.....
<column .... />
<column .... />
.....
</any>
(1) name: the property name.

(2) id-type: the identifier type.
(3) meta-type (optional - defaults to string): Any type that is allowed for a discriminator mapping.
(4) cascade (optional- defaults to none): the cascade style.
value.
acquisition of the optimistic lock. In other words, define if a version increment should occur if this prop-
erty is dirty.
5.2. Hibernate Types
5.2.1. Entities and values
To understand the behaviour of various Java language-level objects with respect to the persistence service, we
need to classify them into two groups:
An entity exists independently of any other objects holding references to the entity. Contrast this with the usual
Java model where an unreferenced object is garbage collected. Entities must be explicitly saved and deleted
(except that saves and deletions may be cascaded from a parent entity to its children). This is different from the
ODMG model of object persistence by reachablity - and corresponds more closely to how application objects
are usually used in large systems. Entities support circular and shared references. They may also be versioned.
An entity's persistent state consists of references to other entities and instances of value types. Values are prim-
itives, collections (not what's inside a collection), components and certain immutable objects. Unlike entities,
values (in particular collections and components) are persisted and deleted by reachability. Since value objects
(and primitives) are persisted and deleted along with their containing entity they may not be independently ver-
sioned. Values have no independent identity, so they cannot be shared by two entities or collections.
Up until now, we've been using the term "persistent class" to refer to entities. We will continue to do that.
Strictly speaking, however, not all user-defined classes with persistent state are entities. A component is a user
defined class with value semantics. A Java property of type java.lang.String also has value semantics. Given
this definition, we can say that all types (classes) provided by the JDK have value type semantics in Java, while
user-defined types may be mapped with entity or value type semantics. This decision is up to the application
developer. A good hint for an entity class in a domain model are shared references to a single instance of that
class, while composition or aggregation usually translates to a value type.
We'll revisit both concepts throughout the documentation.
The challenge is to map the Java type system (and the developers' definition of entities and value types) to the
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SQL/database type system. The bridge between both systems is provided by Hibernate: for entities we use
<class>, <subclass> and so on. For value types we use <property>, <component>, etc, usually with a type at-
tribute. The value of this attribute is the name of a Hibernate mapping type. Hibernate provides many mappings
(for standard JDK value types) out of the box. You can write your own mapping types and implement your cus-
tom conversion strategies as well, as you'll see later.
All built-in Hibernate types except collections support null semantics.
5.2.2. Basic value types
The built-in basic mapping types may be roughly categorized into
integer, long, short, float, double, character, byte, boolean, yes_no, true_false
Type mappings from Java primitives or wrapper classes to appropriate (vendor-specific) SQL column
types. boolean, yes_no and true_false are all alternative encodings for a Java boolean or
java.lang.Boolean.
string
A type mapping from java.lang.String to VARCHAR (or Oracle VARCHAR2).
date, time, timestamp

Type mappings from java.util.Date and its subclasses to SQL types DATE, TIME and TIMESTAMP (or equi-
valent).
calendar, calendar_date
Type mappings from java.util.Calendar to SQL types TIMESTAMP and DATE (or equivalent).
big_decimal, big_integer
Type mappings from java.math.BigDecimal and java.math.BigInteger to NUMERIC (or Oracle NUMBER).
locale, timezone, currency

Type mappings from java.util.Locale, java.util.TimeZone and java.util.Currency to VARCHAR (or
Oracle VARCHAR2). Instances of Locale and Currency are mapped to their ISO codes. Instances of TimeZone
are mapped to their ID.
class
A type mapping from java.lang.Class to VARCHAR (or Oracle VARCHAR2). A Class is mapped to its fully
qualified name.
binary
Maps byte arrays to an appropriate SQL binary type.
text
Maps long Java strings to a SQL CLOB or TEXT type.
serializable
Maps serializable Java types to an appropriate SQL binary type. You may also indicate the Hibernate type
serializable with the name of a serializable Java class or interface that does not default to a basic type.
clob, blob
Type mappings for the JDBC classes java.sql.Clob and java.sql.Blob. These types may be inconveni-
ent for some applications, since the blob or clob object may not be reused outside of a transaction.
(Furthermore, driver support is patchy and inconsistent.)
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imm_date, imm_time, imm_timestamp, imm_calendar, imm_calendar_date, imm_serializable,

imm_binary
Type mappings for what are usually considered mutable Java types, where Hibernate makes certain optim-
izations appropriate only for immutable Java types, and the application treats the object as immutable. For
example, you should not call Date.setTime() for an instance mapped as imm_timestamp. To change the
value of the property, and have that change made persistent, the application must assign a new
(nonidentical) object to the property.
Unique identifiers of entities and collections may be of any basic type except binary, blob and clob.
(Composite identifiers are also allowed, see below.)
The basic value types have corresponding Type constants defined on org.hibernate.Hibernate. For example,
Hibernate.STRING represents the string type.
5.2.3. Custom value types
It is relatively easy for developers to create their own value types. For example, you might want to persist prop-
erties of type java.lang.BigInteger to VARCHAR columns. Hibernate does not provide a built-in type for this.
But custom types are not limited to mapping a property (or collection element) to a single table column. So, for
example, you might have a Java property getName()/setName() of type java.lang.String that is persisted to
the columns FIRST_NAME, INITIAL, SURNAME.
To implement a customtype, implement either org.hibernate.UserType or

org.hibernate.CompositeUserType and declare properties using the fully qualified classname of the type.
Check out org.hibernate.test.DoubleStringType to see the kind of things that are possible.
<property name="twoStrings" type="org.hibernate.test.DoubleStringType">

<column name="first_string"/>
<column name="second_string"/>
</property>
Notice the use of <column> tags to map a property to multiple columns.
The CompositeUserType, EnhancedUserType, UserCollectionType, and UserVersionType interfaces provide

support for more specialized uses.
You may even supply parameters to a UserType in the mapping file. To do this, your UserType must implement
the org.hibernate.usertype.ParameterizedType interface. To supply parameters to your custom type, you
can use the <type> element in your mapping files.
<property name="priority">
<type name="com.mycompany.usertypes.DefaultValueIntegerType">
<param name="default">0</param>
</type>
</property>
The UserType can now retrieve the value for the parameter named default from the Properties object passed
to it.
If you use a certain UserType very often, it may be useful to define a shorter name for it. You can do this using
the <typedef> element. Typedefs assign a name to a custom type, and may also contain a list of default para-
meter values if the type is parameterized.
<typedef class="com.mycompany.usertypes.DefaultValueIntegerType" name="default_zero">

<param name="default">0</param>
</typedef>
Hibernate 3.1.1 71
Basic O/R Mapping
<property name="priority" type="default_zero"/>
It is also possible to override the parameters supplied in a typedef on a case-by-case basis by using type para-
meters on the property mapping.
Even though Hibernate's rich range of built-in types and support for components means you will very rarely
need to use a custom type, it is nevertheless considered good form to use custom types for (non-entity) classes
that occur frequently in your application. For example, a MonetaryAmount class is a good candidate for a Com-
positeUserType, even though it could easily be mapped as a component. One motivation for this is abstraction.
With a custom type, your mapping documents would be future-proofed against possible changes in your way of
representing monetary values.
5.3. Mapping a class more than once

It is possible to provide more than one mapping for a particular persistent class. In this case you must specify
an entity name do disambiguate between instances of the two mapped entities. (By default, the entity name is
the same as the class name.) Hibernate lets you specify the entity name when working with persistent objects,
when writing queries, or when mapping associations to the named entity.
<class name="Contract" table="Contracts"

entity-name="CurrentContract">
...
<set name="history" inverse="true"
order-by="effectiveEndDate desc">
<key column="currentContractId"/>
<one-to-many entity-name="HistoricalContract"/>
</set>
</class>
<class name="Contract" table="ContractHistory"

entity-name="HistoricalContract">
...
<many-to-one name="currentContract"
column="currentContractId"
entity-name="CurrentContract"/>
</class>
Notice how associations are now specified using entity-name instead of class.
5.4. SQL quoted identifiers

You may force Hibernate to quote an identifier in the generated SQL by enclosing the table or column name in
backticks in the mapping document. Hibernate will use the correct quotation style for the SQL Dialect (usually
double quotes, but brackets for SQL Server and backticks for MySQL).
<class name="LineItem" table="`Line Item`">

<id name="id" column="Ìtem Id`"/><generator class="assigned"/></id>
<property name="itemNumber" column="Ìtem #`"/>
...
</class>
5.5. Metadata alternatives

XML isn't for everyone, and so there are some alternative ways to define O/R mapping metadata in Hibernate.
Hibernate 3.1.1 72
Basic O/R Mapping
5.5.1. Using XDoclet markup
Many Hibernate users prefer to embed mapping information directly in sourcecode using XDoclet
@hibernate.tags. We will not cover this approach in this document, since strictly it is considered part of
XDoclet. However, we include the following example of the Cat class with XDoclet mappings.
package eg;
/**
* @hibernate.class
* table="CATS"
*/
public class Cat {
private Long id; // identifier
private Date birthdate;
private Cat mother;
private Set kittens
private Color color;
private char sex;
private float weight;
/*
* @hibernate.id
* generator-class="native"
* column="CAT_ID"
*/
return id;
}
this.id=id;
}
/**
* @hibernate.many-to-one
* column="PARENT_ID"
*/
public Cat getMother() {
return mother;
}
void setMother(Cat mother) {
this.mother = mother;
}
/**
* @hibernate.property
* column="BIRTH_DATE"
*/
public Date getBirthdate() {
return birthdate;
}
void setBirthdate(Date date) {
birthdate = date;
}
/**
* column="WEIGHT"
*/
public float getWeight() {
return weight;
}
void setWeight(float weight) {
this.weight = weight;
}
/**
Hibernate 3.1.1 73
Basic O/R Mapping
* column="COLOR"
* not-null="true"
*/
public Color getColor() {
return color;
}
void setColor(Color color) {
this.color = color;
}
/**
* @hibernate.set
* inverse="true"
* order-by="BIRTH_DATE"
* @hibernate.collection-key
* column="PARENT_ID"
* @hibernate.collection-one-to-many
*/
public Set getKittens() {
return kittens;
}
void setKittens(Set kittens) {
this.kittens = kittens;
}
// addKitten not needed by Hibernate
public void addKitten(Cat kitten) {
}
/**
* column="SEX"
* not-null="true"
* update="false"
*/
public char getSex() {
return sex;
}
void setSex(char sex) {
this.sex=sex;
}
}
See the Hibernate web site for more examples of XDoclet and Hibernate.
5.5.2. Using JDK 5.0 Annotations
JDK 5.0 introduced XDoclet-style annotations at the language level, type-safe and checked at compile time.
This mechnism is more powerful than XDoclet annotations and better supported by tools and IDEs. IntelliJ
IDEA, for example, supports auto-completion and syntax highlighting of JDK 5.0 annotations. The new revi-
sion of the EJB specification (JSR-220) uses JDK 5.0 annotations as the primary metadata mechanism for en-
tity beans. Hibernate3 implements the EntityManager of JSR-220 (the persistence API), support for mapping
metadata is available via the Hibernate Annotations package, as a separate download. Both EJB3 (JSR-220)
and Hibernate3 metadata is supported.
This is an example of a POJO class annotated as an EJB entity bean:
@Entity(access = AccessType.FIELD)
public class Customer implements Serializable {
@Id;
Long id;
String firstName;
String lastName;
Date birthday;
Hibernate 3.1.1 74
Basic O/R Mapping
@Transient
Integer age;
@Embedded
private Address homeAddress;
@OneToMany(cascade=CascadeType.ALL)
@JoinColumn(name="CUSTOMER_ID")
Set<Order> orders;
// Getter/setter and business methods

}
Note that support for JDK 5.0 Annotations (and JSR-220) is still work in progress and not completed. Please
refer to the Hibernate Annotations module for more details.
5.6. Generated Properties

Generated properties are properties which have their values generated by the database. Typically, Hibernate ap-
plications needed to refresh objects which contain any properties for which the database was generating val-
ues. Marking properties as generated, however, lets the application delegate this responsibility to Hibernate. Es-
sentially, whenever Hibernate issues an SQL INSERT or UPDATE for an entity which has defined generated
properties, it immediately issues a select afterwards to retrieve the generated values.
Properties marked as generated must additionally be non-insertable and non-updateable. Only Section 5.1.7,
“version (optional)”, Section 5.1.8, “timestamp (optional)”, and Section 5.1.9, “property” can be marked as
generated.
never (the default) - means that the given property value is not generated within the database.
insert - states that the given property value is generated on insert, but is not regenerated on subsequent up-
dates. Things like created-date would fall into this category. Note that even thought Section 5.1.7, “version
(optional)” and Section 5.1.8, “timestamp (optional)” properties can be marked as generated, this option is not
available there...
always - states that the property value is generated both on insert and on update.
5.7. Auxiliary Database Objects

Allows CREATE and DROP of arbitrary database objects, in conjunction with Hibernate's schema evolution
tools, to provide the ability to fully define a user schema within the Hibernate mapping files. Although de-
signed specifically for creating and dropping things like triggers or stored procedures, really any SQL com-
mand that can be run via a java.sql.Statement.execute() method is valid here (ALTERs, INSERTS, etc).
There are essentially two modes for defining auxiliary database objects...
The first mode is to explicitly list the CREATE and DROP commands out in the mapping file:
<hibernate-mapping>
...
<database-object>
<create>CREATE TRIGGER my_trigger ...</create>
<drop>DROP TRIGGER my_trigger</drop>
</database-object>
Hibernate 3.1.1 75
Basic O/R Mapping
The second mode is to supply a custom class which knows how to construct the CREATE and DROP com-
mands. This custom class must implement the org.hibernate.mapping.AuxiliaryDatabaseObject interface.
<hibernate-mapping>
...
<database-object>
<definition class="MyTriggerDefinition"/>
</database-object>
Additionally, these database objects can be optionally scoped such that they only apply when certain dialects
are used.
<hibernate-mapping>
...
<database-object>
<definition class="MyTriggerDefinition"/>
<dialect-scope name="org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle9Dialect"/>
<dialect-scope name="org.hibernate.dialect.OracleDialect"/>
</database-object>
Hibernate 3.1.1 76
Chapter 6. Collection Mapping
6.1. Persistent collections

Hibernate requires that persistent collection-valued fields be declared as an interface type, for example:
public class Product {

private String serialNumber;
private Set parts = new HashSet();
public Set getParts() { return parts; }

void setParts(Set parts) { this.parts = parts; }
public String getSerialNumber() { return serialNumber; }
void setSerialNumber(String sn) { serialNumber = sn; }
}
The actual interface might be java.util.Set, java.util.Collection, java.util.List, java.util.Map,

java.util.SortedSet, java.util.SortedMap or ... anything you like! (Where "anything you like" means you
will have to write an implementation of org.hibernate.usertype.UserCollectionType.)
Notice how we initialized the instance variable with an instance of HashSet. This is the best way to initialize
collection valued properties of newly instantiated (non-persistent) instances. When you make the instance per-
sistent - by calling persist(), for example - Hibernate will actually replace the HashSet with an instance of
Hibernate's own implementation of Set. Watch out for errors like this:
Cat cat = new DomesticCat();

Cat kitten = new DomesticCat();
....
Set kittens = new HashSet();
cat.setKittens(kittens);
session.persist(cat);
kittens = cat.getKittens(); // Okay, kittens collection is a Set
(HashSet) cat.getKittens(); // Error!
The persistent collections injected by Hibernate behave like HashMap, HashSet, TreeMap, TreeSet or
ArrayList, depending upon the interface type.
Collections instances have the usual behavior of value types. They are automatically persisted when referenced
by a persistent object and automatically deleted when unreferenced. If a collection is passed from one persistent
object to another, its elements might be moved from one table to another. Two entities may not share a refer-
ence to the same collection instance. Due to the underlying relational model, collection-valued properties do
not support null value semantics; Hibernate does not distinguish between a null collection reference and an
empty collection.
You shouldn't have to worry much about any of this. Use persistent collections the same way you use ordinary
Java collections. Just make sure you understand the semantics of bidirectional associations (discussed later).
6.2. Collection mappings

The Hibernate mapping element used for mapping a collection depends upon the type of the interface. For ex-
ample, a <set> element is used for mapping properties of type Set.
<class name="Product">
<id name="serialNumber" column="productSerialNumber"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 77
Collection Mapping
<set name="parts">
<key column="productSerialNumber" not-null="true"/>
<one-to-many class="Part"/>
</set>
</class>
Apart from <set>, there is also <list>, <map>, <bag>, <array> and <primitive-array> mapping elements.
The <map> element is representative:
<map
table="table_name" (2)
schema="schema_name" (3)
lazy="true|extra|false" (4)
inverse="true|false" (5)
cascade="all|none|save-update|delete|all-delete-orphan|delet(6)e-orphan"
sort="unsorted|natural|comparatorClass" (7)
order-by="column_name asc|desc" (8)
where="arbitrary sql where condition" (9)
fetch="join|select|subselect" (10)
batch-size="N" (11)
mutable="true|false" (14)
>
<key .... />

<map-key .... />
<element .... />
</map>
(1) name the collection property name

(2) table (optional - defaults to property name) the name of the collection table (not used for one-to-many
associations)
(3) schema (optional) the name of a table schema to override the schema declared on the root element
(4) lazy (optional - defaults to true) may be used to disable lazy fetching and specify that the association is
always eagerly fetched, or to enable "extra-lazy" fetching where most operations do not initialize the col-
lection (suitable for very large collections)
(5) inverse (optional - defaults to false) mark this collection as the "inverse" end of a bidirectional associ-
ation
(6) cascade (optional - defaults to none) enable operations to cascade to child entities
(7) sort (optional) specify a sorted collection with natural sort order, or a given comparator class
(8) order-by (optional, JDK1.4 only) specify a table column (or columns) that define the iteration order of
the Map, Set or bag, together with an optional asc or desc
(9) where (optional) specify an arbitrary SQL WHERE condition to be used when retrieving or removing the
collection (useful if the collection should contain only a subset of the available data)
(10) fetch (optional, defaults to select) Choose between outer-join fetching, fetching by sequential select,
and fetching by sequential subselect.
(11) batch-size (optional, defaults to 1) specify a "batch size" for lazily fetching instances of this collection.
(12) access (optional - defaults to property): The strategy Hibernate should use for accessing the collection
property value.
(13) optimistic-lock (optional - defaults to true): Species that changes to the state of the collection results in
increment of the owning entity's version. (For one to many associations, it is often reasonable to disable
this setting.)
(14) mutable (optional - defaults to true): A value of false specifies that the elements of the collection never
change (a minor performance optimization in some cases).
Hibernate 3.1.1 78
Collection Mapping
6.2.1. Collection foreign keys
Collection instances are distinguished in the database by the foreign key of the entity that owns the collection.
This foreign key is referred to as the collection key column (or columns) of the collection table. The collection
key column is mapped by the <key> element.
There may be a nullability constraint on the foreign key column. For most collections, this is implied. For uni-
directional one to many associations, the foreign key column is nullable by default, so you might need to spe-
cify not-null="true".
<key column="productSerialNumber" not-null="true"/>
The foreign key constraint may use ON DELETE CASCADE.
<key column="productSerialNumber" on-delete="cascade"/>
See the previous chapter for a full definition of the <key> element.
6.2.2. Collection elements
Collections may contain almost any other Hibernate type, including all basic types, custom types, components,
and of course, references to other entities. This is an important distinction: an object in a collection might be
handled with "value" semantics (its lifecycle fully depends on the collection owner) or it might be a reference
to another entity, with its own lifecycle. In the latter case, only the "link" between the two objects is considered
to be state held by the collection.
The contained type is referred to as the collection element type. Collection elements are mapped by <element>
or <composite-element>, or in the case of entity references, with <one-to-many> or <many-to-many>. The first
two map elements with value semantics, the next two are used to map entity associations.
6.2.3. Indexed collections
All collection mappings, except those with set and bag semantics, need an index column in the collection table -
a column that maps to an array index, or List index, or Map key. The index of a Map may be of any basic type,
mapped with <map-key>, it may be an entity reference mapped with <map-key-many-to-many>, or it may be a
composite type, mapped with <composite-map-key>. The index of an array or list is always of type integer
and is mapped using the <list-index> element. The mapped column contains sequential integers (numbered
from zero, by default).
<list-index
base="0|1|..."/>
(1) column_name (required): The name of the column holding the collection index values.
(1) base (optional, defaults to 0): The value of the index column that corresponds to the first element of the
list or array.
<map-key
type="type_name" (3)
node="@attribute-name"
length="N"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 79
Collection Mapping
(1) column (optional): The name of the column holding the collection index values.
(2) formula (optional): A SQL formula used to evaluate the key of the map.
(3) type (reguired): The type of the map keys.
<map-key-many-to-many
formula="any SQL expression" (2)(3)
class="ClassName"
/>
(1) column (optional): The name of the foreign key column for the collection index values.
(2) formula (optional): A SQL formula used to evaluate the foreign key of the map key.
(3) class (required): The entity class used as the map key.
If your table doesn't have an index column, and you still wish to use List as the property type, you should map
the property as a Hibernate <bag>. A bag does not retain its order when it is retrieved from the database, but it
may be optionally sorted or ordered.
There are quite a range of mappings that can be generated for collections, covering many common relational
models. We suggest you experiment with the schema generation tool to get a feeling for how various mapping
declarations translate to database tables.
6.2.4. Collections of values and many-to-many associations
Any collection of values or many-to-many association requires a dedicated collection table with a foreign key
column or columns, collection element column or columns and possibly an index column or columns.
For a collection of values, we use the <element> tag.
<element
type="typename" (3)
length="L"
precision="P"
scale="S"
not-null="true|false"
unique="true|false"
node="element-name"
/>
(1) column (optional): The name of the column holding the collection element values.
(2) formula (optional): An SQL formula used to evaluate the element.
(3) type (required): The type of the collection element.
A many-to-many association is specified using the <many-to-many> element.
<many-to-many
fetch="select|join" (4)
node="element-name"
/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 80
Collection Mapping
(1) column (optional): The name of the element foreign key column.
(2) formula (optional): An SQL formula used to evaluate the element foreign key value.
(3) class (required): The name of the associated class.
(4) fetch (optional - defaults to join): enables outer-join or sequential select fetching for this association.
This is a special case; for full eager fetching (in a single SELECT) of an entity and its many-to-many rela-
tionships to other entities, you would enable join fetching not only of the collection itself, but also with
this attribute on the <many-to-many> nested element.
(5) unique (optional): Enable the DDL generation of a unique constraint for the foreign-key column. This
makes the association multiplicity effectively one to many.
(6) not-found (optional - defaults to exception): Specifies how foreign keys that reference missing rows will
be handled: ignore will treat a missing row as a null association.
(7) entity-name (optional): The entity name of the associated class, as an alternative to class.
(8) property-ref: (optional) The name of a property of the associated class that is joined to this foreign key.
If not specified, the primary key of the associated class is used.
Some examples, first, a set of strings:
<set name="names" table="person_names">

<key column="person_id"/>
<element column="person_name" type="string"/>
</set>
A bag containing integers (with an iteration order determined by the order-by attribute):
<bag name="sizes"
table="item_sizes"
order-by="size asc">
<key column="item_id"/>
<element column="size" type="integer"/>
</bag>
An array of entities - in this case, a many to many association:
<array name="addresses"
table="PersonAddress"
cascade="persist">
<key column="personId"/>
<list-index column="sortOrder"/>
<many-to-many column="addressId" class="Address"/>
</array>
A map from string indices to dates:
<map name="holidays"
table="holidays"
schema="dbo"
order-by="hol_name asc">
<key column="id"/>
<map-key column="hol_name" type="string"/>
<element column="hol_date" type="date"/>
</map>
A list of components (discussed in the next chapter):
<list name="carComponents"
table="CarComponents">
<key column="carId"/>
<list-index column="sortOrder"/>
<composite-element class="CarComponent">
<property name="price"/>
<property name="type"/>
<property name="serialNumber" column="serialNum"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 81
Collection Mapping
</composite-element>
</list>
6.2.5. One-to-many associations
A one to many association links the tables of two classes via a foreign key, with no intervening collection table.
This mapping loses certain semantics of normal Java collections:
• An instance of the contained entity class may not belong to more than one instance of the collection
• An instance of the contained entity class may not appear at more than one value of the collection index
An association from Product to Part requires existence of a foreign key column and possibly an index column
to the Part table. A <one-to-many> tag indicates that this is a one to many association.
<one-to-many
node="element-name"
/>
(1) class (required): The name of the associated class.

(2) not-found (optional - defaults to exception): Specifies how cached identifiers that reference missing
rows will be handled: ignore will treat a missing row as a null association.
(3) entity-name (optional): The entity name of the associated class, as an alternative to class.
Notice that the <one-to-many> element does not need to declare any columns. Nor is it necessary to specify the
table name anywhere.
Very important note: If the foreign key column of a <one-to-many> association is declared NOT NULL, you must
declare the <key> mapping not-null="true" or use a bidirectional association with the collection mapping
marked inverse="true". See the discussion of bidirectional associations later in this chapter.
This example shows a map of Part entities by name (where partName is a persistent property of Part). Notice
the use of a formula-based index.
<map name="parts"
cascade="all">
<key column="productId" not-null="true"/>
<map-key formula="partName"/>
<one-to-many class="Part"/>
</map>
6.3. Advanced collection mappings
6.3.1. Sorted collections
Hibernate supports collections implementing java.util.SortedMap and java.util.SortedSet. You must spe-
cify a comparator in the mapping file:
<set name="aliases"
table="person_aliases"
sort="natural">
<key column="person"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 82
Collection Mapping
<element column="name" type="string"/>

</set>
<map name="holidays" sort="my.custom.HolidayComparator">

<key column="year_id"/>
<element column="hol_date" type="date"/>
</map>
Allowed values of the sort attribute are unsorted, natural and the name of a class implementing
java.util.Comparator.
Sorted collections actually behave like java.util.TreeSet or java.util.TreeMap.
If you want the database itself to order the collection elements use the order-by attribute of set, bag or map
mappings. This solution is only available under JDK 1.4 or higher (it is implemented using LinkedHashSet or
LinkedHashMap). This performs the ordering in the SQL query, not in memory.
<set name="aliases" table="person_aliases" order-by="lower(name) asc">

<key column="person"/>
<element column="name" type="string"/>
</set>
<map name="holidays" order-by="hol_date, hol_name">

<key column="year_id"/>
<element column="hol_date type="date"/>
</map>
Note that the value of the order-by attribute is an SQL ordering, not a HQL ordering!
Associations may even be sorted by some arbitrary criteria at runtime using a collection filter().
sortedUsers = s.createFilter( group.getUsers(), "order by this.name" ).list();
6.3.2. Bidirectional associations
A bidirectional association allows navigation from both "ends" of the association. Two kinds of bidirectional
association are supported:
one-to-many
set or bag valued at one end, single-valued at the other
many-to-many
set or bag valued at both ends
You may specify a bidirectional many-to-many association simply by mapping two many-to-many associations
to the same database table and declaring one end as inverse (which one is your choice, but it can not be an in-
dexed collection).
Here's an example of a bidirectional many-to-many association; each category can have many items and each
item can be in many categories:
<class name="Category">
<id name="id" column="CATEGORY_ID"/>
...
<bag name="items" table="CATEGORY_ITEM">
<key column="CATEGORY_ID"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 83
Collection Mapping
<many-to-many class="Item" column="ITEM_ID"/>

</bag>
</class>
<class name="Item">
<id name="id" column="CATEGORY_ID"/>
...


<bag name="categories" table="CATEGORY_ITEM" inverse="true">
<key column="ITEM_ID"/>
<many-to-many class="Category" column="CATEGORY_ID"/>
</bag>
</class>
Changes made only to the inverse end of the association are not persisted. This means that Hibernate has two
representations in memory for every bidirectional association, one link from A to B and another link from B to
A. This is easier to understand if you think about the Java object model and how we create a many-to-many re-
lationship in Java:
category.getItems().add(item); // The category now "knows" about the relationship

item.getCategories().add(category); // The item now "knows" about the relationship
session.persist(item); // The relationship won't be saved!

session.persist(category); // The relationship will be saved
The non-inverse side is used to save the in-memory representation to the database.
You may define a bidirectional one-to-many association by mapping a one-to-many association to the same ta-
ble column(s) as a many-to-one association and declaring the many-valued end inverse="true".
<class name="Parent">
<id name="id" column="parent_id"/>
....
<set name="children" inverse="true">
<key column="parent_id"/>
<one-to-many class="Child"/>
</set>
</class>
<class name="Child">
<id name="id" column="child_id"/>
....
<many-to-one name="parent"
class="Parent"
column="parent_id"
not-null="true"/>
</class>
Mapping one end of an association with inverse="true" doesn't affect the operation of cascades, these are or-
thogonal concepts!
6.3.3. Bidirectional associations with indexed collections
A bidirectional association where one end is represented as a <list> or <map> requires special consideration. If
there is a property of the child class which maps to the index column, no problem, we can continue using in-
verse="true" on the collection mapping:
....
Hibernate 3.1.1 84
Collection Mapping
<map name="children" inverse="true">

<map-key column="name"
type="string"/>
</map>
</class>
....
not-null="true"/>
class="Parent"
column="parent_id"
not-null="true"/>
</class>
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). In this case, we can't
map the collection inverse="true". Instead, we could use the following mapping:
....
<map name="children">
<key column="parent_id"
not-null="true"/>
<map-key column="name"
type="string"/>
</map>
</class>
....
class="Parent"
column="parent_id"
insert="false"
update="false"
not-null="true"/>
</class>
Note that in this mapping, the collection-valued end of the association is responsible for updates to the foreign
key. TODO: Does this really result in some unnecessary update statements?
6.3.4. Ternary associations
There are three possible approaches to mapping a ternary association. One is to use a Map with an association as
its index:
<map name="contracts">
<key column="employer_id" not-null="true"/>
<map-key-many-to-many column="employee_id" class="Employee"/>
<one-to-many class="Contract"/>
</map>
<map name="connections">
<key column="incoming_node_id"/>
<map-key-many-to-many column="outgoing_node_id" class="Node"/>
<many-to-many column="connection_id" class="Connection"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 85
Collection Mapping
</map>
A second approach is to simply remodel the association as an entity class. This is the approach we use most
commonly.
A final alternative is to use composite elements, which we will discuss later.
6.3.5. Using an <idbag>
If you've fully embraced our view that composite keys are a bad thing and that entities should have synthetic
identifiers (surrogate keys), then you might find it a bit odd that the many to many associations and collections
of values that we've shown so far all map to tables with composite keys! Now, this point is quite arguable; a
pure association table doesn't seem to benefit much from a surrogate key (though a collection of composite val-
ues might). Nevertheless, Hibernate provides a feature that allows you to map many to many associations and
collections of values to a table with a surrogate key.
The <idbag> element lets you map a List (or Collection) with bag semantics.
<idbag name="lovers" table="LOVERS">

<collection-id column="ID" type="long">
</collection-id>
<key column="PERSON1"/>
<many-to-many column="PERSON2" class="Person" fetch="join"/>
</idbag>
As you can see, an <idbag> has a synthetic id generator, just like an entity class! A different surrogate key is
assigned to each collection row. Hibernate does not provide any mechanism to discover the surrogate key value
of a particular row, however.
Note that the update performance of an <idbag> is much better than a regular <bag>! Hibernate can locate indi-
vidual rows efficiently and update or delete them individually, just like a list, map or set.
In the current implementation, the native identifier generation strategy is not supported for <idbag> collection
identifiers.
6.4. Collection examples

The previous sections are pretty confusing. So lets look at an example. This class:
package eg;
public class Parent {

private long id;
private Set children;
public long getId() { return id; }

private void setId(long id) { this.id=id; }
private Set getChildren() { return children; }

private void setChildren(Set children) { this.children=children; }
....
....
}
Hibernate 3.1.1 86
Collection Mapping
has a collection of Child instances. If each child has at most one parent, the most natural mapping is a one-
to-many association:
<hibernate-mapping>
<id name="id">
</id>
<set name="children">
</set>
</class>
<id name="id">
</id>
<property name="name"/>
</class>
This maps to the following table definitions:
create table parent ( id bigint not null primary key )

create table child ( id bigint not null primary key, name varchar(255), parent_id bigint )
alter table child add constraint childfk0 (parent_id) references parent
If the parent is required, use a bidirectional one-to-many association:
<hibernate-mapping>
<id name="id">
</id>
</set>
</class>
<id name="id">
</id>
<many-to-one name="parent" class="Parent" column="parent_id" not-null="true"/>
</class>
Notice the NOT NULL constraint:

create table child ( id bigint not null
primary key,
name varchar(255),
parent_id bigint not null )
alter table child add constraint childfk0 (parent_id) references parent
Alternatively, if you absolutely insist that this association should be unidirectional, you can declare the NOT
NULL constraint on the <key> mapping:
Hibernate 3.1.1 87
Collection Mapping
<hibernate-mapping>
<id name="id">
</id>
<key column="parent_id" not-null="true"/>
</set>
</class>
<id name="id">
</id>
</class>
On the other hand, if a child might have multiple parents, a many-to-many association is appropriate:
<hibernate-mapping>
<id name="id">
</id>
<set name="children" table="childset">
<many-to-many class="Child" column="child_id"/>
</set>
</class>
<id name="id">
</id>
</class>
Table definitions:

create table child ( id bigint not null primary key, name varchar(255) )
create table childset ( parent_id bigint not null,
child_id bigint not null,
primary key ( parent_id, child_id ) )
alter table childset add constraint childsetfk0 (parent_id) references parent
alter table childset add constraint childsetfk1 (child_id) references child
For more examples and a complete walk-through a parent/child relationship mapping, see Chapter 21, Ex-
ample: Parent/Child.
Even more exotic association mappings are possible, we will catalog all possibilities in the next chapter.
Hibernate 3.1.1 88
Chapter 7. Association Mappings
7.1. Introduction
Association mappings are the often most difficult thing to get right. In this section we'll go through the canonic-
al cases one by one, starting with unidirectional mappings, and then considering the bidirectional cases. We'll
use Person and Address in all the examples.
We'll classify associations by whether or not they map to an intervening join table, and by multiplicity.
Nullable foreign keys are not considered good practice in traditional data modelling, so all our examples use
not null foreign keys. This is not a requirement of Hibernate, and the mappings will all work if you drop the
nullability constraints.
7.2. Unidirectional associations
7.2.1. many to one
A unidirectional many-to-one association is the most common kind of unidirectional association.
<id name="id" column="personId">
</id>
<many-to-one name="address"
column="addressId"
not-null="true"/>
</class>
<class name="Address">
<id name="id" column="addressId">
</id>
</class>
create table Person ( personId bigint not null primary key, addressId bigint not null )
create table Address ( addressId bigint not null primary key )
7.2.2. one to one
A unidirectional one-to-one association on a foreign key is almost identical. The only difference is the column
unique constraint.
</id>
column="addressId"
unique="true"
not-null="true"/>
</class>
Hibernate 3.1.1 89
Association Mappings
</id>
</class>
create table Person ( personId bigint not null primary key, addressId bigint not null unique )
A unidirectional one-to-one association on a primary key usually uses a special id generator. (Notice that we've
reversed the direction of the association in this example.)
</id>
</class>
<param name="property">person</param>
</generator>
</id>
<one-to-one name="person" constrained="true"/>
</class>
create table Person ( personId bigint not null primary key )

create table Address ( personId bigint not null primary key )
7.2.3. one to many
A unidirectional one-to-many association on a foreign key is a very unusual case, and is not really recommen-
ded.
</id>
<set name="addresses">
<key column="personId"
not-null="true"/>
<one-to-many class="Address"/>
</set>
</class>
</id>
</class>

create table Address ( addressId bigint not null primary key, personId bigint not null )
We think it's better to use a join table for this kind of association.
Hibernate 3.1.1 90
7.3. Unidirectional associations with join tables
7.3.1. one to many
A unidirectional one-to-many association on a join table is much preferred. Notice that by specifying
unique="true", we have changed the multiplicity from many-to-many to one-to-many.
</id>
<set name="addresses" table="PersonAddress">
<many-to-many column="addressId"
unique="true"
class="Address"/>
</set>
</class>
</id>
</class>

create table PersonAddress ( personId not null, addressId bigint not null primary key )
7.3.2. many to one
A unidirectional many-to-one association on a join table is quite common when the association is optional.
</id>
<join table="PersonAddress"
optional="true">
<key column="personId" unique="true"/>
column="addressId"
not-null="true"/>
</join>
</class>
</id>
</class>

create table PersonAddress ( personId bigint not null primary key, addressId bigint not null )
Hibernate 3.1.1 91
7.3.3. one to one
A unidirectional one-to-one association on a join table is extremely unusual, but possible.
</id>
optional="true">
unique="true"/>
column="addressId"
not-null="true"
unique="true"/>
</join>
</class>
</id>
</class>

create table PersonAddress ( personId bigint not null primary key, addressId bigint not null unique )
7.3.4. many to many
Finally, we have a unidirectional many-to-many association.
</id>
class="Address"/>
</set>
</class>
</id>
</class>

create table PersonAddress ( personId bigint not null, addressId bigint not null, primary key (personI
7.4. Bidirectional associations
Hibernate 3.1.1 92
7.4.1. one to many / many to one
A bidirectional many-to-one association is the most common kind of association. (This is the standard parent/
child relationship.)
</id>
column="addressId"
not-null="true"/>
</class>
</id>
<set name="people" inverse="true">
<key column="addressId"/>
<one-to-many class="Person"/>
</set>
</class>
create table Person ( personId bigint not null primary key, addressId bigint not null )
If you use a List (or other indexed collection) you need to set the key column of the foreign key to not null,
and let Hibernate manage the association from the collections side to maintain the index of each element
(making the other side virtually inverse by setting update="false" and insert="false"):
<id name="id"/>
...
column="addressId"
not-null="true"
insert="false"
update="false"/>
</class>
<id name="id"/>
...
<list name="people">
<key column="addressId" not-null="true"/>
<list-index column="peopleIdx"/>
<one-to-many class="Person"/>
</list>
</class>
It is important that you define not-null="true" on the <key> element of the collection mapping if the underly-
ing foreign key column is NOT NULL. Don't only declare not-null="true" on a possible nested <column> ele-
ment, but on the <key> element.
7.4.2. one to one
A bidirectional one-to-one association on a foreign key is quite common.
Hibernate 3.1.1 93
</id>
column="addressId"
unique="true"
not-null="true"/>
</class>
</id>
<one-to-one name="person"
property-ref="address"/>
</class>
create table Person ( personId bigint not null primary key, addressId bigint not null unique )
A bidirectional one-to-one association on a primary key uses the special id generator.
</id>
<one-to-one name="address"/>
</class>
<param name="property">person</param>
</generator>
</id>
<one-to-one name="person"
constrained="true"/>
</class>

create table Address ( personId bigint not null primary key )
7.5. Bidirectional associations with join tables
7.5.1. one to many / many to one
A bidirectional one-to-many association on a join table. Note that the inverse="true" can go on either end of
the association, on the collection, or on the join.
</id>
<set name="addresses"
table="PersonAddress">
unique="true"
class="Address"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 94
</set>
</class>
</id>
inverse="true"
optional="true">
column="personId"
not-null="true"/>
</join>
</class>

create table PersonAddress ( personId bigint not null, addressId bigint not null primary key )
7.5.2. one to one
A bidirectional one-to-one association on a join table is extremely unusual, but possible.
</id>
optional="true">
unique="true"/>
column="addressId"
not-null="true"
unique="true"/>
</join>
</class>
</id>
optional="true"
inverse="true">
<key column="addressId"
unique="true"/>
column="personId"
not-null="true"
unique="true"/>
</join>
</class>

create table PersonAddress ( personId bigint not null primary key, addressId bigint not null unique )
Hibernate 3.1.1 95
7.5.3. many to many
Finally, we have a bidirectional many-to-many association.
</id>
class="Address"/>
</set>
</class>
</id>
<set name="people" inverse="true" table="PersonAddress">
<many-to-many column="personId"
class="Person"/>
</set>
</class>

create table PersonAddress ( personId bigint not null, addressId bigint not null, primary key (personI
7.6. More complex association mappings

More complex association joins are extremely rare. Hibernate makes it possible to handle more complex situ-
ations using SQL fragments embedded in the mapping document. For example, if a table with historical ac-
count information data defines accountNumber, effectiveEndDate and effectiveStartDatecolumns, mapped
as follows:
<properties name="currentAccountKey">
<property name="accountNumber" type="string" not-null="true"/>
<property name="currentAccount" type="boolean">
<formula>case when effectiveEndDate is null then 1 else 0 end</formula>
</property>
</properties>
<property name="effectiveEndDate" type="date"/>
<property name="effectiveStateDate" type="date" not-null="true"/>
Then we can map an association to the current instance (the one with null effectiveEndDate) using:
<many-to-one name="currentAccountInfo"
property-ref="currentAccountKey"
class="AccountInfo">
<column name="accountNumber"/>
<formula>'1'</formula>
</many-to-one>
In a more complex example, imagine that the association between Employee and Organization is maintained in
an Employment table full of historical employment data. Then an association to the employee's most recent em-
ployer (the one with the most recent startDate) might be mapped this way:
Hibernate 3.1.1 96
<join>
<key column="employeeId"/>
<subselect>
select employeeId, orgId
from Employments
group by orgId
having startDate = max(startDate)
</subselect>
<many-to-one name="mostRecentEmployer"
class="Organization"
column="orgId"/>
</join>
You can get quite creative with this functionality, but it is usually more practical to handle these kinds of cases
using HQL or a criteria query.
Hibernate 3.1.1 97
Chapter 8. Component Mapping
The notion of a component is re-used in several different contexts, for different purposes, throughout Hibernate.
8.1. Dependent objects

A component is a contained object that is persisted as a value type, not an entity reference. The term "compon-
ent" refers to the object-oriented notion of composition (not to architecture-level components). For example,
you might model a person like this:

private java.util.Date birthday;
private Name name;
private String key;
public String getKey() {
return key;
}
private void setKey(String key) {
this.key=key;
}
public java.util.Date getBirthday() {
return birthday;
}
public void setBirthday(java.util.Date birthday) {
this.birthday = birthday;
}
public Name getName() {
return name;
}
public void setName(Name name) {
this.name = name;
}
......
......
}
public class Name {

char initial;
String first;
String last;
public String getFirst() {
return first;
}
void setFirst(String first) {
this.first = first;
}
public String getLast() {
return last;
}
void setLast(String last) {
this.last = last;
}
public char getInitial() {
return initial;
}
void setInitial(char initial) {
this.initial = initial;
}
}
Now Name may be persisted as a component of Person. Notice that Name defines getter and setter methods for
its persistent properties, but doesn't need to declare any interfaces or identifier properties.
Hibernate 3.1.1 98
Component Mapping
Our Hibernate mapping would look like:
<class name="eg.Person" table="person">

<id name="Key" column="pid" type="string">
<generator class="uuid"/>
</id>
<property name="birthday" type="date"/>
<component name="Name" class="eg.Name"> 
<property name="first"/>
<property name="last"/>
</component>
</class>
The person table would have the columns pid, birthday, initial, first and last.
Like all value types, components do not support shared references. In other words, two persons could have the
same name, but the two person objects would contain two independent name ojects, only "the same" by value.
The null value semantics of a component are ad hoc. When reloading the containing object, Hibernate will as-
sume that if all component columns are null, then the entire component is null. This should be okay for most
purposes.
The properties of a component may be of any Hibernate type (collections, many-to-one associations, other
components, etc). Nested components should not be considered an exotic usage. Hibernate is intended to sup-
port a very fine-grained object model.
The <component> element allows a <parent> subelement that maps a property of the component class as a ref-
erence back to the containing entity.
<class name="eg.Person" table="person">

<id name="Key" column="pid" type="string">
</id>
<property name="birthday" type="date"/>
<component name="Name" class="eg.Name" unique="true">
<parent name="namedPerson"/> 
</component>
</class>
8.2. Collections of dependent objects

Collections of components are supported (eg. an array of type Name). Declare your component collection by re-
placing the <element> tag with a <composite-element> tag.
<set name="someNames" table="some_names" lazy="true">

<key column="id"/>
<composite-element class="eg.Name"> 
</set>
Note: if you define a Set of composite elements, it is very important to implement equals() and hashCode()
correctly.
Hibernate 3.1.1 99
Component Mapping
Composite elements may contain components but not collections. If your composite element itself contains
components, use the <nested-composite-element> tag. This is a pretty exotic case - a collection of compon-
ents which themselves have components. By this stage you should be asking yourself if a one-to-many associ-
ation is more appropriate. Try remodelling the composite element as an entity - but note that even though the
Java model is the same, the relational model and persistence semantics are still slightly different.
Please note that a composite element mapping doesn't support null-able properties if you're using a <set>. Hi-
bernate has to use each columns value to identify a record when deleting objects (there is no separate primary
key column in the composite element table), which is not possible with null values. You have to either use only
not-null properties in a composite-element or choose a <list>, <map>, <bag> or <idbag>.
A special case of a composite element is a composite element with a nested <many-to-one> element. A map-
ping like this allows you to map extra columns of a many-to-many association table to the composite element
class. The following is a many-to-many association from Order to Item where purchaseDate, price and
quantity are properties of the association:
<class name="eg.Order" .... >

....
<set name="purchasedItems" table="purchase_items" lazy="true">
<key column="order_id">
<composite-element class="eg.Purchase">
<property name="purchaseDate"/>
<property name="price"/>
<property name="quantity"/>
<many-to-one name="item" class="eg.Item"/> 
</set>
</class>
Of course, there can't be a reference to the purchae on the other side, for bidirectional association navigation.
Remember that components are value types and don't allow shared references. A single Purchase can be in the
set of an Order, but it can't be referenced by the Item at the same time.
Even ternary (or quaternary, etc) associations are possible:
<class name="eg.Order" .... >

....
<set name="purchasedItems" table="purchase_items" lazy="true">
<key column="order_id">
<composite-element class="eg.OrderLine">
<many-to-one name="purchaseDetails class="eg.Purchase"/>
<many-to-one name="item" class="eg.Item"/>
</set>
</class>
Composite elements may appear in queries using the same syntax as associations to other entities.
8.3. Components as Map indices

The <composite-map-key> element lets you map a component class as the key of a Map. Make sure you over-
ride hashCode() and equals() correctly on the component class.
8.4. Components as composite identifiers

You may use a component as an identifier of an entity class. Your component class must satisfy certain require-
Hibernate 3.1.1 100

Component Mapping
ments:
• It must implement java.io.Serializable.

• It must re-implement equals() and hashCode(), consistently with the database's notion of composite key
equality.
Note: in Hibernate3, the second requirement is not an absolutely hard requirement of Hibernate. But do it any-
way.
You can't use an IdentifierGenerator to generate composite keys. Instead the application must assign its own
identifiers.
Use the <composite-id> tag (with nested <key-property> elements) in place of the usual <id> declaration. For
example, the OrderLine class has a primary key that depends upon the (composite) primary key of Order.
<class name="OrderLine">
<composite-id name="id" class="OrderLineId">

<key-property name="lineId"/>
<key-property name="orderId"/>
<key-property name="customerId"/>
</composite-id>
<many-to-one name="order" class="Order"

insert="false" update="false">
<column name="orderId"/>
<column name="customerId"/>
</many-to-one>
....
</class>
Now, any foreign keys referencing the OrderLine table are also composite. You must declare this in your map-
pings for other classes. An association to OrderLine would be mapped like this:
<many-to-one name="orderLine" class="OrderLine">


<column name="lineId"/>
</many-to-one>
(Note that the <column> tag is an alternative to the column attribute everywhere.)
A many-to-many association to OrderLine also uses the composite foreign key:
<set name="undeliveredOrderLines">
<key column name="warehouseId"/>
<many-to-many class="OrderLine">
</many-to-many>
</set>
The collection of OrderLines in Order would use:
<set name="orderLines" inverse="true">

<key>
Hibernate 3.1.1 101

Component Mapping
</key>
<one-to-many class="OrderLine"/>
</set>
(The <one-to-many> element, as usual, declares no columns.)
If OrderLine itself owns a collection, it also has a composite foreign key.
<class name="OrderLine">
....
....
<list name="deliveryAttempts">
<key> 
</key>
<list-index column="attemptId" base="1"/>
<composite-element class="DeliveryAttempt">
...
</set>
</class>
8.5. Dynamic components

You may even map a property of type Map:
<dynamic-component name="userAttributes">
<property name="foo" column="FOO" type="string"/>
<property name="bar" column="BAR" type="integer"/>
<many-to-one name="baz" class="Baz" column="BAZ_ID"/>
</dynamic-component>
The semantics of a <dynamic-component> mapping are identical to <component>. The advantage of this kind of
mapping is the ability to determine the actual properties of the bean at deployment time, just by editing the
mapping document. Runtime manipulation of the mapping document is also possible, using a DOM parser.
Even better, you can access (and change) Hibernate's configuration-time metamodel via the Configuration ob-
ject.
Hibernate 3.1.1 102

Chapter 9. Inheritance Mapping
9.1. The Three Strategies

Hibernate supports the three basic inheritance mapping strategies:
• table per class hierarchy
• table per subclass
• table per concrete class
In addition, Hibernate supports a fourth, slightly different kind of polymorphism:
• implicit polymorphism
It is possible to use different mapping strategies for different branches of the same inheritance hierarchy, and
then make use of implicit polymorphism to achieve polymorphism across the whole hierarchy. However, Hi-
bernate does not support mixing <subclass>, and <joined-subclass> and <union-subclass> mappings under
the same root <class> element. It is possible to mix together the table per hierarchy and table per subclass
strategies, under the the same <class> element, by combining the <subclass> and <join> elements (see be-
low).
It is possible to define subclass, union-subclass, and joined-subclass mappings in separate mapping docu-
ments, directly beneath hibernate-mapping. This allows you to extend a class hierachy just by adding a new
mapping file. You must specify an extends attribute in the subclass mapping, naming a previously mapped su-
perclass. Note: Previously this feature made the ordering of the mapping documents important. Since Hibern-
ate3, the ordering of mapping files does not matter when using the extends keyword. The ordering inside a
single mapping file still needs to be defined as superclasses before subclasses.
<hibernate-mapping>
<subclass name="DomesticCat" extends="Cat" discriminator-value="D">
<property name="name" type="string"/>
</subclass>
9.1.1. Table per class hierarchy
Suppose we have an interface Payment, with implementors CreditCardPayment, CashPayment, ChequePayment.

The table per hierarchy mapping would look like:
<class name="Payment" table="PAYMENT">

<id name="id" type="long" column="PAYMENT_ID">
</id>
<discriminator column="PAYMENT_TYPE" type="string"/>
<property name="amount" column="AMOUNT"/>
...
<subclass name="CreditCardPayment" discriminator-value="CREDIT">
<property name="creditCardType" column="CCTYPE"/>
...
</subclass>
<subclass name="CashPayment" discriminator-value="CASH">
...
Hibernate 3.1.1 103

Inheritance Mapping
</subclass>
<subclass name="ChequePayment" discriminator-value="CHEQUE">
...
</subclass>
</class>
Exactly one table is required. There is one big limitation of this mapping strategy: columns declared by the sub-
classes, such as CCTYPE, may not have NOT NULL constraints.
9.1.2. Table per subclass
A table per subclass mapping would look like:

</id>
...
<joined-subclass name="CreditCardPayment" table="CREDIT_PAYMENT">
<key column="PAYMENT_ID"/>
...
</joined-subclass>
<joined-subclass name="CashPayment" table="CASH_PAYMENT">
...
</joined-subclass>
<joined-subclass name="ChequePayment" table="CHEQUE_PAYMENT">
...
</joined-subclass>
</class>
Four tables are required. The three subclass tables have primary key associations to the superclass table (so the
relational model is actually a one-to-one association).
9.1.3. Table per subclass, using a discriminator
Note that Hibernate's implementation of table per subclass requires no discriminator column. Other object/
relational mappers use a different implementation of table per subclass which requires a type discriminator
column in the superclass table. The approach taken by Hibernate is much more difficult to implement but argu-
ably more correct from a relational point of view. If you would like to use a discriminator column with the table
per subclass strategy, you may combine the use of <subclass> and <join>, as follow:

</id>
...
<join table="CREDIT_PAYMENT">
...
</join>
</subclass>
<join table="CASH_PAYMENT">
Hibernate 3.1.1 104

Inheritance Mapping
...
</join>
</subclass>
<join table="CHEQUE_PAYMENT" fetch="select">
...
</join>
</subclass>
</class>
The optional fetch="select" declaration tells Hibernate not to fetch the ChequePayment subclass data using an
outer join when querying the superclass.
9.1.4. Mixing table per class hierarchy with table per subclass
You may even mix the table per hierarchy and table per subclass strategies using this approach:

</id>
...
<join table="CREDIT_PAYMENT">
...
</join>
</subclass>
...
</subclass>
...
</subclass>
</class>
For any of these mapping strategies, a polymorphic association to the root Payment class is mapped using
<many-to-one>.
<many-to-one name="payment" column="PAYMENT_ID" class="Payment"/>
9.1.5. Table per concrete class
There are two ways we could go about mapping the table per concrete class strategy. The first is to use
<union-subclass>.
<class name="Payment">
</id>
...
<union-subclass name="CreditCardPayment" table="CREDIT_PAYMENT">
...
</union-subclass>
<union-subclass name="CashPayment" table="CASH_PAYMENT">
...
</union-subclass>
Hibernate 3.1.1 105

Inheritance Mapping
<union-subclass name="ChequePayment" table="CHEQUE_PAYMENT">

...
</union-subclass>
</class>
Three tables are involved for the subclasses. Each table defines columns for all properties of the class, includ-
ing inherited properties.
The limitation of this approach is that if a property is mapped on the superclass, the column name must be the
same on all subclass tables. (We might relax this in a future release of Hibernate.) The identity generator
strategy is not allowed in union subclass inheritance, indeed the primary key seed has to be shared accross all
unioned subclasses of a hierarchy.
If your superclass is abstract, map it with abstract="true". Of course, if it is not abstract, an additional table
(defaults to PAYMENT in the example above) is needed to hold instances of the superclass.
9.1.6. Table per concrete class, using implicit polymorphism
An alternative approach is to make use of implicit polymorphism:
<class name="CreditCardPayment" table="CREDIT_PAYMENT">

<id name="id" type="long" column="CREDIT_PAYMENT_ID">
</id>
<property name="amount" column="CREDIT_AMOUNT"/>
...
</class>
<class name="CashPayment" table="CASH_PAYMENT">

<id name="id" type="long" column="CASH_PAYMENT_ID">
</id>
<property name="amount" column="CASH_AMOUNT"/>
...
</class>
<class name="ChequePayment" table="CHEQUE_PAYMENT">

<id name="id" type="long" column="CHEQUE_PAYMENT_ID">
</id>
<property name="amount" column="CHEQUE_AMOUNT"/>
...
</class>
Notice that nowhere do we mention the Payment interface explicitly. Also notice that properties of Payment are
mapped in each of the subclasses. If you want to avoid duplication, consider using XML entities (e.g. [
<!ENTITY allproperties SYSTEM "allproperties.xml"> ] in the DOCTYPE declartion and &allproperties;
in the mapping).
The disadvantage of this approach is that Hibernate does not generate SQL UNIONs when performing poly-
morphic queries.
For this mapping strategy, a polymorphic association to Payment is usually mapped using <any>.
<any name="payment" meta-type="string" id-type="long">

<meta-value value="CREDIT" class="CreditCardPayment"/>
<meta-value value="CASH" class="CashPayment"/>
<meta-value value="CHEQUE" class="ChequePayment"/>
<column name="PAYMENT_CLASS"/>
<column name="PAYMENT_ID"/>
</any>
Hibernate 3.1.1 106

Inheritance Mapping
9.1.7. Mixing implicit polymorphism with other inheritance mappings
There is one further thing to notice about this mapping. Since the subclasses are each mapped in their own
<class> element (and since Payment is just an interface), each of the subclasses could easily be part of another
inheritance hierarchy! (And you can still use polymorphic queries against the Payment interface.)
<class name="CreditCardPayment" table="CREDIT_PAYMENT">

<id name="id" type="long" column="CREDIT_PAYMENT_ID">
</id>
<discriminator column="CREDIT_CARD" type="string"/>
<property name="amount" column="CREDIT_AMOUNT"/>
...
<subclass name="MasterCardPayment" discriminator-value="MDC"/>
<subclass name="VisaPayment" discriminator-value="VISA"/>
</class>
<class name="NonelectronicTransaction" table="NONELECTRONIC_TXN">

<id name="id" type="long" column="TXN_ID">
</id>
...
<joined-subclass name="CashPayment" table="CASH_PAYMENT">
<property name="amount" column="CASH_AMOUNT"/>
...
</joined-subclass>
<joined-subclass name="ChequePayment" table="CHEQUE_PAYMENT">
<property name="amount" column="CHEQUE_AMOUNT"/>
...
</joined-subclass>
</class>
Once again, we don't mention Payment explicitly. If we execute a query against the Payment interface - for ex-
ample, from Payment - Hibernate automatically returns instances of CreditCardPayment (and its subclasses,
since they also implement Payment), CashPayment and ChequePayment but not instances of Nonelectronic-
Transaction.
9.2. Limitations
There are certain limitations to the "implicit polymorphism" approach to the table per concrete-class mapping
strategy. There are somewhat less restrictive limitations to <union-subclass> mappings.
The following table shows the limitations of table per concrete-class mappings, and of implicit polymorphism,
in Hibernate.
Table 9.1. Features of inheritance mappings
Inherit- Poly- Poly- Poly- Poly- Poly- Poly- Poly-

ance morphic morphic morphic morphic morphic morphic morphic
strategy many- one-to-one one- many- load()/get queries joins
to-one to-many to-many ()
table per <many-to-o <one-to-on <one-to-ma <many-to-m s.get(Paym from Pay- from Order
class- ne> e> ny> any> ent.class, ment p o join
hierarchy id) o.payment
p
Hibernate 3.1.1 107

Inheritance Mapping
Inherit- Poly- Poly- Poly- Poly- Poly- Poly- Poly-

ance morphic morphic morphic morphic morphic morphic morphic
strategy many- one-to-one one- many- load()/get queries joins
to-one to-many to-many ()
subclass ne> e> ny> any> ent.class, ment p o join
id) o.payment
p
concrete- ne> e> ny> (for any> ent.class, ment p o join
class in- id) o.payment
(union-subc verse="tru p
lass) e" only)
table per <any> not suppor- not suppor- <many-to-a s.createCr from Pay- not suppor-
concrete ted ted ny> iter- ment p ted
class ia(Payment
(implicit .class).ad
polymorph- d( Re-
ism) stric-
tions.idEq
(id)
).uniqueRe
sult()
Hibernate 3.1.1 108

Chapter 10. Working with objects
Hibernate is a full object/relational mapping solution that not only shields the developer from the details of the
underlying database management system, but also offers state management of objects. This is, contrary to the
management of SQL statements in common JDBC/SQL persistence layers, a very natural object-oriented
view of persistence in Java applications.
In other words, Hibernate application developers should always think about the state of their objects, and not
necessarily about the execution of SQL statements. This part is taken care of by Hibernate and is only relevant
for the application developer when tuning the performance of the system.
10.1. Hibernate object states

Hibernate defines and supports the following object states:
• Transient - an object is transient if it has just been instantiated using the new operator, and it is not associ-
ated with a Hibernate Session. It has no persistent representation in the database and no identifier value has
been assigned. Transient instances will be destroyed by the garbage collector if the application doesn't hold
a reference anymore. Use the Hibernate Session to make an object persistent (and let Hibernate take care of
the SQL statements that need to be executed for this transition).
• Persistent - a persistent instance has a representation in the database and an identifier value. It might just
have been saved or loaded, however, it is by definition in the scope of a Session. Hibernate will detect any
changes made to an object in persistent state and synchronize the state with the database when the unit of
work completes. Developers don't execute manual UPDATE statements, or DELETE statements when an object
should be made transient.
• Detached - a detached instance is an object that has been persistent, but its Session has been closed. The
reference to the object is still valid, of course, and the detached instance might even be modified in this
state. A detached instance can be reattached to a new Session at a later point in time, making it (and all the
modifications) persistent again. This feature enables a programming model for long running units of work
that require user think-time. We call them application transactions, i.e. a unit of work from the point of
view of the user.
We'll now discuss the states and state transitions (and the Hibernate methods that trigger a transition) in more
detail.
10.2. Making objects persistent

Newly instantiated instances of a a persistent class are considered transient by Hibernate. We can make a tran-
sient instance persistent by associating it with a session:
DomesticCat fritz = new DomesticCat();

fritz.setColor(Color.GINGER);
fritz.setSex('M');
fritz.setName("Fritz");
Long generatedId = (Long) sess.save(fritz);
If Cat has a generated identifier, the identifier is generated and assigned to the cat when save() is called. If
Cat has an assigned identifier, or a composite key, the identifier should be assigned to the cat instance before
calling save(). You may also use persist() instead of save(), with the semantics defined in the EJB3 early
Hibernate 3.1.1 109

Working with objects
draft.
Alternatively, you may assign the identifier using an overloaded version of save().
DomesticCat pk = new DomesticCat();

pk.setColor(Color.TABBY);
pk.setSex('F');
pk.setName("PK");
pk.setKittens( new HashSet() );
pk.addKitten(fritz);
sess.save( pk, new Long(1234) );
If the object you make persistent has associated objects (e.g. the kittens collection in the previous example),
these objects may be made persistent in any order you like unless you have a NOT NULL constraint upon a for-
eign key column. There is never a risk of violating foreign key constraints. However, you might violate a NOT
NULL constraint if you save() the objects in the wrong order.
Usually you don't bother with this detail, as you'll very likely use Hibernate's transitive persistence feature to
save the associated objects automatically. Then, even NOT NULL constraint violations don't occur - Hibernate
will take care of everything. Transitive persistence is discussed later in this chapter.
10.3. Loading an object

The load() methods of Session gives you a way to retrieve a persistent instance if you already know its identi-
fier. load() takes a class object and will load the state into a newly instantiated instance of that class, in persist-
ent state.
Cat fritz = (Cat) sess.load(Cat.class, generatedId);
// you need to wrap primitive identifiers

long id = 1234;
DomesticCat pk = (DomesticCat) sess.load( DomesticCat.class, new Long(id) );
Alternatively, you can load state into a given instance:
Cat cat = new DomesticCat();

// load pk's state into cat
sess.load( cat, new Long(pkId) );
Set kittens = cat.getKittens();
Note that load() will throw an unrecoverable exception if there is no matching database row. If the class is
mapped with a proxy, load() just returns an uninitialized proxy and does not actually hit the database until you
invoke a method of the proxy. This behaviour is very useful if you wish to create an association to an object
without actually loading it from the database. It also allows multiple instances to be loaded as a batch if batch-
size is defined for the class mapping.
If you are not certain that a matching row exists, you should use the get() method, which hits the database im-
mediately and returns null if there is no matching row.
Cat cat = (Cat) sess.get(Cat.class, id);

if (cat==null) {
cat = new Cat();
sess.save(cat, id);
}
return cat;
You may even load an object using an SQL SELECT ... FOR UPDATE, using a LockMode. See the API docu-
Hibernate 3.1.1 110

mentation for more information.
Cat cat = (Cat) sess.get(Cat.class, id, LockMode.UPGRADE);
Note that any associated instances or contained collections are not selected FOR UPDATE, unless you decide to
specify lock or all as a cascade style for the association.
It is possible to re-load an object and all its collections at any time, using the refresh() method. This is useful
when database triggers are used to initialize some of the properties of the object.
sess.save(cat);
sess.flush(); //force the SQL INSERT
sess.refresh(cat); //re-read the state (after the trigger executes)
An important question usually appears at this point: How much does Hibernate load from the database and how
many SQL SELECTs will it use? This depends on the fetching strategy and is explained in Section 19.1,
“Fetching strategies”.
10.4. Querying
If you don't know the identifiers of the objects you are looking for, you need a query. Hibernate supports an
easy-to-use but powerful object oriented query language (HQL). For programmatic query creation, Hibernate
supports a sophisticated Criteria and Example query feature (QBC and QBE). You may also express your query
in the native SQL of your database, with optional support from Hibernate for result set conversion into objects.
10.4.1. Executing queries
HQL and native SQL queries are represented with an instance of org.hibernate.Query. This interface offers
methods for parameter binding, result set handling, and for the execution of the actual query. You always ob-
tain a Query using the current Session:
List cats = session.createQuery(

"from Cat as cat where cat.birthdate < ?")
.setDate(0, date)
.list();
List mothers = session.createQuery(

"select mother from Cat as cat join cat.mother as mother where cat.name = ?")
.setString(0, name)
.list();
List kittens = session.createQuery(

"from Cat as cat where cat.mother = ?")
.setEntity(0, pk)
.list();
Cat mother = (Cat) session.createQuery(

"select cat.mother from Cat as cat where cat = ?")
.setEntity(0, izi)
.uniqueResult();]]
Query mothersWithKittens = (Cat) session.createQuery(

"select mother from Cat as mother left join fetch mother.kittens");
Set uniqueMothers = new HashSet(mothersWithKittens.list());
A query is usually executed by invoking list(), the result of the query will be loaded completely into a collec-
tion in memory. Entity instances retrieved by a query are in persistent state. The uniqueResult() method offers
a shortcut if you know your query will only return a single object. Note that queries that make use of eager
Hibernate 3.1.1 111

fetching of collections usually return duplicates of the root objects (but with their collections initialized). You
can filter these duplicates simply through a Set.
Iterating results
Occasionally, you might be able to achieve better performance by executing the query using the iterate()
method. This will only usually be the case if you expect that the actual entity instances returned by the query
will already be in the session or second-level cache. If they are not already cached, iterate() will be slower
than list() and might require many database hits for a simple query, usually 1 for the initial select which only
returns identifiers, and n additional selects to initialize the actual instances.
// fetch ids
Iterator iter = sess.createQuery("from eg.Qux q order by q.likeliness").iterate();
while ( iter.hasNext() ) {
Qux qux = (Qux) iter.next(); // fetch the object
// something we couldnt express in the query
if ( qux.calculateComplicatedAlgorithm() ) {
// delete the current instance
iter.remove();
// dont need to process the rest
break;
}
}
Queries that return tuples
Hibernate queries sometimes return tuples of objects, in which case each tuple is returned as an array:
Iterator kittensAndMothers = sess.createQuery(

"select kitten, mother from Cat kitten join kitten.mother mother")
.list()
.iterator();
while ( kittensAndMothers.hasNext() ) {
Object[] tuple = (Object[]) kittensAndMothers.next();
Cat kitten = tuple[0];
Cat mother = tuple[1];
....
}
Scalar results
Queries may specify a property of a class in the select clause. They may even call SQL aggregate functions.
Properties or aggregates are considered "scalar" results (and not entities in persistent state).
Iterator results = sess.createQuery(

"select cat.color, min(cat.birthdate), count(cat) from Cat cat " +
"group by cat.color")
.list()
.iterator();
while ( results.hasNext() ) {
Object[] row = (Object[]) results.next();
Color type = (Color) row[0];
Date oldest = (Date) row[1];
Integer count = (Integer) row[2];
.....
}
Bind parameters
Hibernate 3.1.1 112

Methods on Query are provided for binding values to named parameters or JDBC-style ? parameters. Contrary
to JDBC, Hibernate numbers parameters from zero. Named parameters are identifiers of the form :name in the
query string. The advantages of named parameters are:
• named parameters are insensitive to the order they occur in the query string
• they may occur multiple times in the same query
• they are self-documenting
//named parameter (preferred)

Query q = sess.createQuery("from DomesticCat cat where cat.name = :name");
q.setString("name", "Fritz");
Iterator cats = q.iterate();
//positional parameter
Query q = sess.createQuery("from DomesticCat cat where cat.name = ?");
q.setString(0, "Izi");
Iterator cats = q.iterate();
//named parameter list

List names = new ArrayList();
names.add("Izi");
names.add("Fritz");
Query q = sess.createQuery("from DomesticCat cat where cat.name in (:namesList)");
q.setParameterList("namesList", names);
List cats = q.list();
Pagination
If you need to specify bounds upon your result set (the maximum number of rows you want to retrieve and / or
the first row you want to retrieve) you should use methods of the Query interface:
Query q = sess.createQuery("from DomesticCat cat");

q.setFirstResult(20);
q.setMaxResults(10);
Hibernate knows how to translate this limit query into the native SQL of your DBMS.
Scrollable iteration
If your JDBC driver supports scrollable ResultSets, the Query interface may be used to obtain a Scrolla-
bleResults object, which allows flexible navigation of the query results.
Query q = sess.createQuery("select cat.name, cat from DomesticCat cat " +

"order by cat.name");
ScrollableResults cats = q.scroll();
if ( cats.first() ) {
// find the first name on each page of an alphabetical list of cats by name
firstNamesOfPages = new ArrayList();
do {
String name = cats.getString(0);
firstNamesOfPages.add(name);
}
while ( cats.scroll(PAGE_SIZE) );
// Now get the first page of cats

pageOfCats = new ArrayList();
cats.beforeFirst();
int i=0;
while( ( PAGE_SIZE > i++ ) && cats.next() ) pageOfCats.add( cats.get(1) );
Hibernate 3.1.1 113

}
cats.close()
Note that an open database connection (and cursor) is required for this functionality, use setMaxResult()/set-
FirstResult() if you need offline pagination functionality.
Externalizing named queries
You may also define named queries in the mapping document. (Remember to use a CDATA section if your query
contains characters that could be interpreted as markup.)
<query name="eg.DomesticCat.by.name.and.minimum.weight"><![CDATA[
from eg.DomesticCat as cat
where cat.name = ?
and cat.weight > ?
] ]></query>
Parameter binding and executing is done programatically:
Query q = sess.getNamedQuery("eg.DomesticCat.by.name.and.minimum.weight");
q.setString(0, name);
q.setInt(1, minWeight);
Note that the actual program code is independent of the query language that is used, you may also define native
SQL queries in metadata, or migrate existing queries to Hibernate by placing them in mapping files.
10.4.2. Filtering collections
A collection filter is a special type of query that may be applied to a persistent collection or array. The query
string may refer to this, meaning the current collection element.
Collection blackKittens = session.createFilter(

pk.getKittens(),
"where this.color = ?")
.setParameter( Color.BLACK, Hibernate.custom(ColorUserType.class) )
.list()
);
The returned collection is considered a bag, and it's a copy of the given collection. The original collection is not
modified (this is contrary to the implication of the name "filter", but consistent with expected behavior).
Observe that filters do not require a from clause (though they may have one if required). Filters are not limited
to returning the collection elements themselves.
Collection blackKittenMates = session.createFilter(

pk.getKittens(),
"select this.mate where this.color = eg.Color.BLACK.intValue")
.list();
Even an empty filter query is useful, e.g. to load a subset of elements in a huge collection:
Collection tenKittens = session.createFilter(

mother.getKittens(), "")
.setFirstResult(0).setMaxResults(10)
.list();
Hibernate 3.1.1 114

10.4.3. Criteria queries
HQL is extremely powerful but some developers prefer to build queries dynamically, using an object-oriented
API, rather than building query strings. Hibernate provides an intuitive Criteria query API for these cases:
Criteria crit = session.createCriteria(Cat.class);

crit.add( Expression.eq( "color", eg.Color.BLACK ) );
crit.setMaxResults(10);
List cats = crit.list();
The Criteria and the associated Example API are discussed in more detail in Chapter 15, Criteria Queries.
10.4.4. Queries in native SQL
You may express a query in SQL, using createSQLQuery() and let Hibernate take care of the mapping from
result sets to objects. Note that you may at any time call session.connection() and use the JDBC Connection
directly. If you chose to use the Hibernate API, you must enclose SQL aliases in braces:
List cats = session.createSQLQuery(

"SELECT {cat.*} FROM CAT {cat} WHERE ROWNUM<10",
"cat",
Cat.class
).list();
List cats = session.createSQLQuery(

"SELECT {cat}.ID AS {cat.id}, {cat}.SEX AS {cat.sex}, " +
"{cat}.MATE AS {cat.mate}, {cat}.SUBCLASS AS {cat.class}, ... " +
"FROM CAT {cat} WHERE ROWNUM<10",
"cat",
Cat.class
).list()
SQL queries may contain named and positional parameters, just like Hibernate queries. More information about
native SQL queries in Hibernate can be found in Chapter 16, Native SQL.
10.5. Modifying persistent objects

Transactional persistent instances (ie. objects loaded, saved, created or queried by the Session) may be manip-
ulated by the application and any changes to persistent state will be persisted when the Session is flushed
(discussed later in this chapter). There is no need to call a particular method (like update(), which has a differ-
ent purpose) to make your modifications persistent. So the most straightforward way to update the state of an
object is to load() it, and then manipulate it directly, while the Session is open:
DomesticCat cat = (DomesticCat) sess.load( Cat.class, new Long(69) );

cat.setName("PK");
sess.flush(); // changes to cat are automatically detected and persisted
Sometimes this programming model is inefficient since it would require both an SQL SELECT (to load an ob-
ject) and an SQL UPDATE (to persist its updated state) in the same session. Therefore Hibernate offers an altern-
ate approach, using detached instances.
Note that Hibernate does not offer its own API for direct execution of UPDATE or DELETE statements. Hibernate
is a state management service, you don't have to think in statements to use it. JDBC is a perfect API for execut-
ing SQL statements, you can get a JDBC Connection at any time by calling session.connection(). Further-
more, the notion of mass operations conflicts with object/relational mapping for online transaction processing-
Hibernate 3.1.1 115

oriented applications. Future versions of Hibernate may however provide special mass operation functions. See
Chapter 13, Batch processing for some possible batch operation tricks.
10.6. Modifying detached objects

Many applications need to retrieve an object in one transaction, send it to the UI layer for manipulation, then
save the changes in a new transaction. Applications that use this kind of approach in a high-concurrency envir-
onment usually use versioned data to ensure isolation for the "long" unit of work.
Hibernate supports this model by providing for reattachment of detached instances using the Ses-
sion.update() or Session.merge() methods:
// in the first session

Cat cat = (Cat) firstSession.load(Cat.class, catId);
Cat potentialMate = new Cat();
firstSession.save(potentialMate);
// in a higher layer of the application

cat.setMate(potentialMate);
// later, in a new session

secondSession.update(cat); // update cat
secondSession.update(mate); // update mate
If the Cat with identifier catId had already been loaded by secondSession when the application tried to reat-
tach it, an exception would have been thrown.
Use update() if you are sure that the session does not contain an already persistent instance with the same
identifier, and merge() if you want to merge your modifications at any time without consideration of the state
of the session. In other words, update() is usually the first method you would call in a fresh session, ensuring
that reattachment of your detached instances is the first operation that is executed.
The application should individually update() detached instances reachable from the given detached instance if
and only if it wants their state also updated. This can be automated of course, using transitive persistence, see
Section 10.11, “Transitive persistence”.
The lock() method also allows an application to reassociate an object with a new session. However, the de-
tached instance has to be unmodified!
//just reassociate:
sess.lock(fritz, LockMode.NONE);
//do a version check, then reassociate:
sess.lock(izi, LockMode.READ);
//do a version check, using SELECT ... FOR UPDATE, then reassociate:
sess.lock(pk, LockMode.UPGRADE);
Note that lock() can be used with various LockModes, see the API documentation and the chapter on transac-
tion handling for more information. Reattachment is not the only usecase for lock().
Other models for long units of work are discussed in Section 11.3, “Optimistic concurrency control”.
10.7. Automatic state detection

Hibernate users have requested a general purpose method that either saves a transient instance by generating a
new identifier or updates/reattaches the detached instances associated with its current identifier. The saveOrUp-
date() method implements this functionality.
Hibernate 3.1.1 116

// in the first session

Cat cat = (Cat) firstSession.load(Cat.class, catID);
// in a higher tier of the application

Cat mate = new Cat();
cat.setMate(mate);
// later, in a new session

secondSession.saveOrUpdate(cat); // update existing state (cat has a non-null id)
secondSession.saveOrUpdate(mate); // save the new instance (mate has a null id)
The usage and semantics of saveOrUpdate() seems to be confusing for new users. Firstly, so long as you are
not trying to use instances from one session in another new session, you should not need to use update(), sa-
veOrUpdate(), or merge(). Some whole applications will never use either of these methods.
Usually update() or saveOrUpdate() are used in the following scenario:
• the application loads an object in the first session

• the object is passed up to the UI tier
• some modifications are made to the object
• the object is passed back down to the business logic tier
• the application persists these modifications by calling update() in a second session
saveOrUpdate() does the following:
• if the object is already persistent in this session, do nothing

• if another object associated with the session has the same identifier, throw an exception
• if the object has no identifier property, save() it
• if the object's identifier has the value assigned to a newly instantiated object, save() it
• if the object is versioned (by a <version> or <timestamp>), and the version property value is the same
value assigned to a newly instantiated object, save() it
• otherwise update() the object
and merge() is very different:
• if there is a persistent instance with the same identifier currently associated with the session, copy the state
of the given object onto the persistent instance
• if there is no persistent instance currently associated with the session, try to load it from the database, or
create a new persistent instance
• the persistent instance is returned
• the given instance does not become associated with the session, it remains detached
10.8. Deleting persistent objects

Session.delete() will remove an object's state from the database. Of course, your application might still hold
a reference to a deleted object. It's best to think of delete() as making a persistent instance transient.
sess.delete(cat);
You may delete objects in any order you like, without risk of foreign key constraint violations. It is still pos-
sible to violate a NOT NULL constraint on a foreign key column by deleting objects in the wrong order, e.g. if
you delete the parent, but forget to delete the children.
Hibernate 3.1.1 117

10.9. Replicating object between two different datastores

It is occasionally useful to be able to take a graph of persistent instances and make them persistent in a different
datastore, without regenerating identifier values.
//retrieve a cat from one database

Session session1 = factory1.openSession();
Transaction tx1 = session1.beginTransaction();
Cat cat = session1.get(Cat.class, catId);
tx1.commit();
session1.close();
//reconcile with a second database

Session session2 = factory2.openSession();
Transaction tx2 = session2.beginTransaction();
session2.replicate(cat, ReplicationMode.LATEST_VERSION);
tx2.commit();
session2.close();
The ReplicationMode determines how replicate() will deal with conflicts with existing rows in the database.
• ReplicationMode.IGNORE - ignore the object when there is an existing database row with the same identifi-
er
• ReplicationMode.OVERWRITE - overwrite any existing database row with the same identifier
• ReplicationMode.EXCEPTION - throw an exception if there is an existing database row with the same identi-
fier
• ReplicationMode.LATEST_VERSION - overwrite the row if its version number is earlier than the version
number of the object, or ignore the object otherwise
Usecases for this feature include reconciling data entered into different database instances, upgrading system
configuration information during product upgrades, rolling back changes made during non-ACID transactions
and more.
10.10. Flushing the Session

From time to time the Session will execute the SQL statements needed to synchronize the JDBC connection's
state with the state of objects held in memory. This process, flush, occurs by default at the following points
• before some query executions

• from org.hibernate.Transaction.commit()
• from Session.flush()
The SQL statements are issued in the following order
1. all entity insertions, in the same order the corresponding objects were saved using Session.save()
2. all entity updates
3. all collection deletions
4. all collection element deletions, updates and insertions
5. all collection insertions
6. all entity deletions, in the same order the corresponding objects were deleted using Session.delete()
(An exception is that objects using native ID generation are inserted when they are saved.)
Except when you explicity flush(), there are absolutely no guarantees about when the Session executes the
JDBC calls, only the order in which they are executed. However, Hibernate does guarantee that the
Hibernate 3.1.1 118

Query.list(..) will never return stale data; nor will they return the wrong data.
It is possible to change the default behavior so that flush occurs less frequently. The FlushMode class defines
three different modes: only flush at commit time (and only when the Hibernate Transaction API is used), flush
automatically using the explained routine, or never flush unless flush() is called explicitly. The last mode is
useful for long running units of work, where a Session is kept open and disconnected for a long time (see Sec-
tion 11.3.2, “Extended session and automatic versioning”).
sess = sf.openSession();
Transaction tx = sess.beginTransaction();
sess.setFlushMode(FlushMode.COMMIT); // allow queries to return stale state
Cat izi = (Cat) sess.load(Cat.class, id);

izi.setName(iznizi);
// might return stale data

sess.find("from Cat as cat left outer join cat.kittens kitten");
// change to izi is not flushed!

...
tx.commit(); // flush occurs
sess.close();
During flush, an exception might occur (e.g. if a DML operation violates a constraint). Since handling excep-
tions involves some understanding of Hibernate's transactional behavior, we discuss it in Chapter 11, Transac-
tions And Concurrency.
10.11. Transitive persistence

It is quite cumbersome to save, delete, or reattach individual objects, especially if you deal with a graph of as-
sociated objects. A common case is a parent/child relationship. Consider the following example:
If the children in a parent/child relationship would be value typed (e.g. a collection of addresses or strings),
their lifecycle would depend on the parent and no further action would be required for convenient "cascading"
of state changes. When the parent is saved, the value-typed child objects are saved as well, when the parent is
deleted, the children will be deleted, etc. This even works for operations such as the removal of a child from the
collection; Hibernate will detect this and, since value-typed objects can't have shared references, delete the
child from the database.
Now consider the same scenario with parent and child objects being entities, not value-types (e.g. categories
and items, or parent and child cats). Entities have their own lifecycle, support shared references (so removing
an entity from the collection does not mean it can be deleted), and there is by default no cascading of state from
one entity to any other associated entities. Hibernate does not implement persistence by reachability by default.
For each basic operation of the Hibernate session - including persist(), merge(), saveOrUpdate(), de-
lete(), lock(), refresh(), evict(), replicate() - there is a corresponding cascade style. Respectively,
the cascade styles are named create, merge, save-update, delete, lock, refresh, evict, replicate.
If you want an operation to be cascaded along an association, you must indicate that in the mapping document.
For example:
<one-to-one name="person" cascade="persist"/>
Cascade styles my be combined:
<one-to-one name="person" cascade="persist,delete,lock"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 119

You may even use cascade="all" to specify that all operations should be cascaded along the association. The
default cascade="none" specifies that no operations are to be cascaded.
A special cascade style, delete-orphan, applies only to one-to-many associations, and indicates that the de-
lete() operation should be applied to any child object that is removed from the association.
Recommendations:
• It doesn't usually make sense to enable cascade on a <many-to-one> or <many-to-many> association. Cas-
cade is often useful for <one-to-one> and <one-to-many> associations.
• If the child object's lifespan is bounded by the lifespan of the of the parent object make it a lifecycle object
by specifying cascade="all,delete-orphan".
• Otherwise, you might not need cascade at all. But if you think that you will often be working with the par-
ent and children together in the same transaction, and you want to save yourself some typing, consider us-
ing cascade="persist,merge,save-update".
Mapping an association (either a single valued association, or a collection) with cascade="all" marks the as-
sociation as a parent/child style relationship where save/update/delete of the parent results in save/update/delete
of the child or children.
Futhermore, a mere reference to a child from a persistent parent will result in save/update of the child. This
metaphor is incomplete, however. A child which becomes unreferenced by its parent is not automatically de-
leted, except in the case of a <one-to-many> association mapped with cascade="delete-orphan". The precise
semantics of cascading operations for a parent/child relationship are as follows:
• If a parent is passed to persist(), all children are passed to persist()

• If a parent is passed to merge(), all children are passed to merge()
• If a parent is passed to save(), update() or saveOrUpdate(), all children are passed to saveOrUpdate()
• If a transient or detached child becomes referenced by a persistent parent, it is passed to saveOrUpdate()
• If a parent is deleted, all children are passed to delete()
• If a child is dereferenced by a persistent parent, nothing special happens - the application should explicitly
delete the child if necessary - unless cascade="delete-orphan", in which case the "orphaned" child is de-
leted.
Finally, note that cascading of operations can be applied to an object graph at call time or at flush time. All op-
erations, if enabled, are cascaded to associated entities reachable when the operation is executed. However,
save-upate and delete-orphan are transitive for all associated entities reachable during flush of the Session.
10.12. Using metadata

Hibernate requires a very rich meta-level model of all entity and value types. From time to time, this model is
very useful to the application itself. For example, the application might use Hibernate's metadata to implement
a "smart" deep-copy algorithm that understands which objects should be copied (eg. mutable value types) and
which should not (eg. immutable value types and, possibly, associated entities).
Hibernate exposes metadata via the ClassMetadata and CollectionMetadata interfaces and the Type hier-
archy. Instances of the metadata interfaces may be obtained from the SessionFactory.
Cat fritz = ......;

ClassMetadata catMeta = sessionfactory.getClassMetadata(Cat.class);
Object[] propertyValues = catMeta.getPropertyValues(fritz);

String[] propertyNames = catMeta.getPropertyNames();
Type[] propertyTypes = catMeta.getPropertyTypes();
Hibernate 3.1.1 120

// get a Map of all properties which are not collections or associations

Map namedValues = new HashMap();
for ( int i=0; i<propertyNames.length; i++ ) {
if ( !propertyTypes[i].isEntityType() && !propertyTypes[i].isCollectionType() ) {
namedValues.put( propertyNames[i], propertyValues[i] );
}
}
Hibernate 3.1.1 121

Chapter 11. Transactions And Concurrency
The most important point about Hibernate and concurrency control is that it is very easy to understand. Hibern-
ate directly uses JDBC connections and JTA resources without adding any additional locking behavior. We
highly recommend you spend some time with the JDBC, ANSI, and transaction isolation specification of your
database management system.
Hibernate does not lock objects in memory. Your application can expect the behavior as defined by the isola-
tion level of your database transactions. Note that thanks to the Session, which is also a transaction-scoped
cache, Hibernate provides repeatable reads for lookup by identifier and entity queries (not reporting queries that
return scalar values).
In addition to versioning for automatic optimistic concurrency control, Hibernate also offers a (minor) API for
pessimistic locking of rows, using the SELECT FOR UPDATE syntax. Optimistic concurrency control and this API
are discussed later in this chapter.
We start the discussion of concurrency control in Hibernate with the granularity of Configuration, Session-
Factory, and Session, as well as database transactions and long conversations.
11.1. Session and transaction scopes

A SessionFactory is an expensive-to-create, threadsafe object intended to be shared by all application threads.
It is created once, usually on application startup, from a Configuration instance.
A Session is an inexpensive, non-threadsafe object that should be used once, for a single request, a conversa-
tion, single unit of work, and then discarded. A Session will not obtain a JDBC Connection (or a Datasource)
unless it is needed, hence consume no resources until used.
To complete this picture you also have to think about database transactions. A database transaction has to be as
short as possible, to reduce lock contention in the database. Long database transactions will prevent your ap-
plication from scaling to highly concurrent load. Hence, it is almost never good design to hold a database trans-
action open during user think time, until the unit of work is complete.
What is the scope of a unit of work? Can a single Hibernate Session span several database transactions or is
this a one-to-one relationship of scopes? When should you open and close a Session and how do you demarc-
ate the database transaction boundaries?
11.1.1. Unit of work
First, don't use the session-per-operation antipattern, that is, don't open and close a Session for every simple
database call in a single thread! Of course, the same is true for database transactions. Database calls in an ap-
plication are made using a planned sequence, they are grouped into atomic units of work. (Note that this also
means that auto-commit after every single SQL statement is useless in an application, this mode is intended for
ad-hoc SQL console work. Hibernate disables, or expects the application server to do so, auto-commit mode
immediately.) Database transactions are never optional, all communication with a database has to occur inside a
transaction, no matter if you read or write data. As explained, auto-commit behavior for reading data should be
avoided, as many small transactions are unlikely to perform better than one clearly defined unit of work. The
latter is also much more maintainable and extensible.
The most common pattern in a multi-user client/server application is session-per-request. In this model, a re-
quest from the client is send to the server (where the Hibernate persistence layer runs), a new Hibernate Ses-
Hibernate 3.1.1 122

Transactions And Concurrency
sion is opened, and all database operations are executed in this unit of work. Once the work has been com-
pleted (and the response for the client has been prepared), the session is flushed and closed. You would also use
a single database transaction to serve the clients request, starting and committing it when you open and close
the Session. The relationship between the two is one-to-one and this model is a perfect fit for many applica-
tions.
The challenge lies in the implementation. Hibernate provides built-in management of the "current session" to
simplify this pattern. All you have to do is start a transaction when a server request has to be processed, and end
the transaction before the response is send to the client. You can do this in any way you like, common solutions
are ServletFilter, AOP interceptor with a pointcut on the service methods, or a proxy/interception container.
An EJB container is a standardized way to implement cross-cutting aspects such as transaction demarcation on
EJB session beans, declaratively with CMT. If you decide to use programmatic transaction demarcation, prefer
the Hibernate Transaction API shown later in this chapter, for ease of use and code portability.
Your application code can access a "current session" to process the request by simply calling sessionFact-
ory.getCurrentSession() anywhere and as often as needed. You will always get a Session scoped to the cur-
rent database transaction. This has to be configured for either resource-local or JTA environments, see Sec-
tion 2.5, “Contextual Sessions”.
Sometimes it is convenient to extend the scope of a Session and database transaction until the "view has been
rendered". This is especially useful in servlet applications that utilize a separate rendering phase after the re-
quest has been processed. Extending the database transaction until view rendering is complete is easy to do if
you implement your own interceptor. However, it is not easily doable if you rely on EJBs with container-man-
aged transactions, as a transaction will be completed when an EJB method returns, before rendering of any
view can start. See the Hibernate website and forum for tips and examples around this Open Session in View
pattern.
11.1.2. Long conversations
The session-per-request pattern is not the only useful concept you can use to design units of work. Many busi-
ness processes require a whole series of interactions with the user interleaved with database accesses. In web
and enterprise applications it is not acceptable for a database transaction to span a user interaction. Consider the
following example:
• The first screen of a dialog opens, the data seen by the user has been loaded in a particular Session and
database transaction. The user is free to modify the objects.
• The user clicks "Save" after 5 minutes and expects his modifications to be made persistent; he also expects
that he was the only person editing this information and that no conflicting modification can occur.
We call this unit of work, from the point of view of the user, a long running conversation (or application trans-
action). There are many ways how you can implement this in your application.
A first naive implementation might keep the Session and database transaction open during user think time,
with locks held in the database to prevent concurrent modification, and to guarantee isolation and atomicity.
This is of course an anti-pattern, since lock contention would not allow the application to scale with the number
of concurrent users.
Clearly, we have to use several database transactions to implement the converastion. In this case, maintaining
isolation of business processes becomes the partial responsibility of the application tier. A single conversation
usually spans several database transactions. It will be atomic if only one of these database transactions (the last
one) stores the updated data, all others simply read data (e.g. in a wizard-style dialog spanning several request/
response cycles). This is easier to implement than it might sound, especially if you use Hibernate's features:
Hibernate 3.1.1 123

• Automatic Versioning - Hibernate can do automatic optimistic concurrency control for you, it can automat-
ically detect if a concurrent modification occured during user think time. Usually we only check at the end
of the conversation.
• Detached Objects - If you decide to use the already discussed session-per-request pattern, all loaded in-
stances will be in detached state during user think time. Hibernate allows you to reattach the objects and
persist the modifications, the pattern is called session-per-request-with-detached-objects. Automatic ver-
sioning is used to isolate concurrent modifications.
• Extended (or Long) Session - The Hibernate Session may be disconnected from the underlying JDBC con-
nection after the database transaction has been committed, and reconnected when a new client request oc-
curs. This pattern is known as session-per-conversation and makes even reattachment unnecessary. Auto-
matic versioning is used to isolate concurrent modifications and the Session is usually not allowed to be
flushed automatically, but explicitely.
Both session-per-request-with-detached-objects and session-per-conversation have advantages and disadvant-

ages, we discuss them later in this chapter in the context of optimistic concurrency control.
11.1.3. Considering object identity
An application may concurrently access the same persistent state in two different Sessions. However, an in-
stance of a persistent class is never shared between two Session instances. Hence there are two different no-
tions of identity:
Database Identity
foo.getId().equals( bar.getId() )
JVM Identity
foo==bar
Then for objects attached to a particular Session (i.e. in the scope of a Session) the two notions are equival-
ent, and JVM identity for database identity is guaranteed by Hibernate. However, while the application might
concurrently access the "same" (persistent identity) business object in two different sessions, the two instances
will actually be "different" (JVM identity). Conflicts are resolved using (automatic versioning) at flush/commit
time, using an optimistic approach.
This approach leaves Hibernate and the database to worry about concurrency; it also provides the best scalabil-
ity, since guaranteeing identity in single-threaded units of work only doesn't need expensive locking or other
means of synchronization. The application never needs to synchronize on any business object, as long as it
sticks to a single thread per Session. Within a Session the application may safely use == to compare objects.
However, an application that uses == outside of a Session, might see unexpected results. This might occur even
in some unexpected places, for example, if you put two detached instances into the same Set. Both might have
the same database identity (i.e. they represent the same row), but JVM identity is by definition not guaranteed
for instances in detached state. The developer has to override the equals() and hashCode() methods in persist-
ent classes and implement his own notion of object equality. There is one caveat: Never use the database identi-
fier to implement equality, use a business key, a combination of unique, usually immutable, attributes. The
database identifier will change if a transient object is made persistent. If the transient instance (usually together
with detached instances) is held in a Set, changing the hashcode breaks the contract of the Set. Attributes for
business keys don't have to be as stable as database primary keys, you only have to guarantee stability as long
as the objects are in the same Set. See the Hibernate website for a more thorough discussion of this issue. Also
note that this is not a Hibernate issue, but simply how Java object identity and equality has to be implemented.
Hibernate 3.1.1 124

11.1.4. Common issues
Never use the anti-patterns session-per-user-session or session-per-application (of course, there are rare excep-
tions to this rule). Note that some of the following issues might also appear with the recommended patterns,
make sure you understand the implications before making a design decision:
• A Session is not thread-safe. Things which are supposed to work concurrently, like HTTP requests, session
beans, or Swing workers, will cause race conditions if a Session instance would be shared. If you keep
your Hibernate Session in your HttpSession (discussed later), you should consider synchronizing access
to your Http session. Otherwise, a user that clicks reload fast enough may use the same Session in two con-
currently running threads.
• An exception thrown by Hibernate means you have to rollback your database transaction and close the Ses-
sion immediately (discussed later in more detail). If your Session is bound to the application, you have to
stop the application. Rolling back the database transaction doesn't put your business objects back into the
state they were at the start of the transaction. This means the database state and the business objects do get
out of sync. Usually this is not a problem, because exceptions are not recoverable and you have to start over
after rollback anyway.
• The Session caches every object that is in persistent state (watched and checked for dirty state by Hibern-
ate). This means it grows endlessly until you get an OutOfMemoryException, if you keep it open for a long
time or simply load too much data. One solution for this is to call clear() and evict() to manage the Ses-
sion cache, but you most likely should consider a Stored Procedure if you need mass data operations. Some
solutions are shown in Chapter 13, Batch processing. Keeping a Session open for the duration of a user
session also means a high probability of stale data.
11.2. Database transaction demarcation

Datatabase (or system) transaction boundaries are always necessary. No communication with the database can
occur outside of a database transaction (this seems to confuse many developers who are used to the auto-
commit mode). Always use clear transaction boundaries, even for read-only operations. Depending on your
isolation level and database capabilities this might not be required but there is no downside if you always de-
marcate transactions explicitly. Certainly, a single database transaction is going to perform better than many
small transactions, even for reading data.
A Hibernate application can run in non-managed (i.e. standalone, simple Web- or Swing applications) and man-
aged J2EE environments. In a non-managed environment, Hibernate is usually responsible for its own database
connection pool. The application developer has to manually set transaction boundaries, in other words, begin,
commit, or rollback database transactions himself. A managed environment usually provides container-man-
aged transactions (CMT), with the transaction assembly defined declaratively in deployment descriptors of EJB
session beans, for example. Programmatic transaction demarcation is then no longer necessary.
However, it is often desirable to keep your persistence layer portable between non-managed resource-local en-
vironments, and systems that can rely on JTA but use BMT instead of CMT. In both cases you'd use program-
matic transaction demaracation. Hibernate offers a wrapper API called Transaction that translates into the nat-
ive transaction system of your deployment environment. This API is actually optional, but we strongly encour-
age its use unless you are in a CMT session bean.
Usually, ending a Session involves four distinct phases:
• flush the session

• commit the transaction
Hibernate 3.1.1 125

• close the session

• handle exceptions
Flushing the session has been discussed earlier, we'll now have a closer look at transaction demarcation and ex-
ception handling in both managed- and non-managed environments.
11.2.1. Non-managed environment
If a Hibernate persistence layer runs in a non-managed environment, database connections are usually handled
by simple (i.e. non-DataSource) connection pools from which Hibernate obtains connections as needed. The
session/transaction handling idiom looks like this:
// Non-managed environment idiom

Session sess = factory.openSession();
Transaction tx = null;
try {
tx = sess.beginTransaction();
// do some work
...
tx.commit();
}
catch (RuntimeException e) {
if (tx != null) tx.rollback();
throw e; // or display error message
}
finally {
sess.close();
}
You don't have to flush() the Session explicitly - the call to commit() automatically triggers the synchroniza-
tion (depending upon the Section 10.10, “Flushing the Session” for the session. A call to close() marks the
end of a session. The main implication of close() is that the JDBC connection will be relinquished by the ses-
sion. This Java code is portable and runs in both non-managed and JTA environments.
A much more flexible solution is Hibernate's built-in "current session" context management, as described earli-
er:
// Non-managed environment idiom with getCurrentSession()

try {
factory.getCurrentSession().beginTransaction();
// do some work
...
factory.getCurrentSession().getTransaction().commit();
}
factory.getCurrentSession().getTransaction().rollback();
}
You will very likely never see these code snippets in a regular application; fatal (system) exceptions should al-
ways be caught at the "top". In other words, the code that executes Hibernate calls (in the persistence layer) and
the code that handles RuntimeException (and usually can only clean up and exit) are in different layers. The
current context management by Hibernate can significantly simplify this design, as all you need is access to a
SessionFactory. Exception handling is discussed later in this chapter.
Note that you should select org.hibernate.transaction.JDBCTransactionFactory (which is the default),

and for the second example "thread" as your hibernate.current_session_context_class.
Hibernate 3.1.1 126

11.2.2. Using JTA
If your persistence layer runs in an application server (e.g. behind EJB session beans), every datasource con-
nection obtained by Hibernate will automatically be part of the global JTA transaction. You can also install a
standalone JTA implementation and use it without EJB. Hibernate offers two strategies for JTA integration.
If you use bean-managed transactions (BMT) Hibernate will tell the application server to start and end a BMT
transaction if you use the Transaction API. So, the transaction management code is identical to the non-
managed environment.
// BMT idiom
try {
tx = sess.beginTransaction();
// do some work
...
tx.commit();
}
if (tx != null) tx.rollback();
}
finally {
sess.close();
}
If you want to use a transaction-bound Session, that is, the getCurrentSession() functionality for easy con-
text propagation, you will have to use the JTA UserTransaction API directly:
// BMT idiom with getCurrentSession()

try {
UserTransaction tx = (UserTransaction)new InitialContext()
.lookup("java:comp/UserTransaction");
tx.begin();
// Do some work on Session bound to transaction

factory.getCurrentSession().load(...);
factory.getCurrentSession().persist(...);
tx.commit();
}
tx.rollback();
}
With CMT, transaction demarcation is done in session bean deployment descriptors, not programatically,
hence, the code is reduced to:
// CMT idiom
Session sess = factory.getCurrentSession();
// do some work
...
In a CMT/EJB even rollback happens automatically, since an unhandled RuntimeException thrown by a ses-
sion bean method tells the container to set the global transaction to rollback. This means you do not need to use
the Hibernate Transaction API at all with BMT or CMT, and you get automatic propagation of the "current"
Hibernate 3.1.1 127

Session bound to the transaction.
Note that you should choose org.hibernate.transaction.JTATransactionFactory if you use JTA directly
(BMT), and org.hibernate.transaction.CMTTransactionFactory in a CMT session bean, when you config-
ure Hibernate's transaction factory. Remember to also set hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class.
Furthermore, make sure that your hibernate.current_session_context_class is either unset (backwards
compatiblity), or set to "jta".
The getCurrentSession() operation has one downside in a JTA environment. There is one caveat to the use of
after_statement connection release mode, which is then used by default. Due to a silly limitation of the JTA
spec, it is not possible for Hibernate to automatically clean up any unclosed ScrollableResults or Iterator
instances returned by scroll() or iterate(). You must release the underlying database cursor by calling
ScrollableResults.close() or Hibernate.close(Iterator) explicity from a finally block. (Of course,
most applications can easily avoid using scroll() or iterate() at all from the JTA or CMT code.)
11.2.3. Exception handling
If the Session throws an exception (including any SQLException), you should immediately rollback the data-
base transaction, call Session.close() and discard the Session instance. Certain methods of Session will not
leave the session in a consistent state. No exception thrown by Hibernate can be treated as recoverable. Ensure
that the Session will be closed by calling close() in a finally block.
The HibernateException, which wraps most of the errors that can occur in a Hibernate persistence layer, is an
unchecked exception (it wasn't in older versions of Hibernate). In our opinion, we shouldn't force the applica-
tion developer to catch an unrecoverable exception at a low layer. In most systems, unchecked and fatal excep-
tions are handled in one of the first frames of the method call stack (i.e. in higher layers) and an error message
is presented to the application user (or some other appropriate action is taken). Note that Hibernate might also
throw other unchecked exceptions which are not a HibernateException. These are, again, not recoverable and
appropriate action should be taken.
Hibernate wraps SQLExceptions thrown while interacting with the database in a JDBCException. In fact, Hi-
bernate will attempt to convert the eexception into a more meningful subclass of JDBCException. The underly-
ing SQLException is always available via JDBCException.getCause(). Hibernate converts the SQLException
into an appropriate JDBCException subclass using the SQLExceptionConverter attached to the SessionFact-
ory. By default, the SQLExceptionConverter is defined by the configured dialect; however, it is also possible
to plug in a custom implementation (see the javadocs for the SQLExceptionConverterFactory class for de-
tails). The standard JDBCException subtypes are:
• JDBCConnectionException - indicates an error with the underlying JDBC communication.

• SQLGrammarException - indicates a grammar or syntax problem with the issued SQL.
• ConstraintViolationException - indicates some form of integrity constraint violation.
• LockAcquisitionException - indicates an error acquiring a lock level necessary to perform the requested
operation.
• GenericJDBCException - a generic exception which did not fall into any of the other categories.
11.2.4. Transaction timeout
One extremely important feature provided by a managed environment like EJB that is never provided for non-
managed code is transaction timeout. Transaction timeouts ensure that no misbehaving transaction can indefin-
itely tie up resources while returning no response to the user. Outside a managed (JTA) environment, Hibernate
cannot fully provide this functionality. However, Hibernate can at least control data access operations, ensuring
that database level deadlocks and queries with huge result sets are limited by a defined timeout. In a managed
environment, Hibernate can delegate transaction timeout to JTA. This functioanlity is abstracted by the Hibern-
Hibernate 3.1.1 128

ate Transaction object.

try {
//set transaction timeout to 3 seconds
sess.getTransaction().setTimeout(3);
sess.getTransaction().begin();
// do some work
...
sess.getTransaction().commit()
}
sess.getTransaction().rollback();
}
finally {
sess.close();
}
Note that setTimeout() may not be called in a CMT bean, where transaction timeouts must be defined declar-
atively.
11.3. Optimistic concurrency control

The only approach that is consistent with high concurrency and high scalability is optimistic concurrency con-
trol with versioning. Version checking uses version numbers, or timestamps, to detect conflicting updates (and
to prevent lost updates). Hibernate provides for three possible approaches to writing application code that uses
optimistic concurrency. The use cases we show are in the context of long conversations, but version checking
also has the benefit of preventing lost updates in single database transactions.
11.3.1. Application version checking
In an implementation without much help from Hibernate, each interaction with the database occurs in a new
Session and the developer is responsible for reloading all persistent instances from the database before manip-
ulating them. This approach forces the application to carry out its own version checking to ensure conversation
transaction isolation. This approach is the least efficient in terms of database access. It is the approach most
similar to entity EJBs.
// foo is an instance loaded by a previous Session

session = factory.openSession();
Transaction t = session.beginTransaction();
int oldVersion = foo.getVersion();

session.load( foo, foo.getKey() ); // load the current state
if ( oldVersion!=foo.getVersion ) throw new StaleObjectStateException();
foo.setProperty("bar");
t.commit();
session.close();
The version property is mapped using <version>, and Hibernate will automatically increment it during flush if
the entity is dirty.
Of course, if you are operating in a low-data-concurrency environment and don't require version checking, you
may use this approach and just skip the version check. In that case, last commit wins will be the default strategy
Hibernate 3.1.1 129

for your long conversations. Keep in mind that this might confuse the users of the application, as they might ex-
perience lost updates without error messages or a chance to merge conflicting changes.
Clearly, manual version checking is only feasible in very trivial circumstances and not practical for most ap-
plications. Often not only single instances, but complete graphs of modified ojects have to be checked. Hibern-
ate offers automatic version checking with either an extended Session or detached instances as the design
paradigm.
11.3.2. Extended session and automatic versioning
A single Session instance and its persistent instances are used for the whole conversation, known as session-
per-conversation. Hibernate checks instance versions at flush time, throwing an exception if concurrent modi-
fication is detected. It's up to the developer to catch and handle this exception (common options are the oppor-
tunity for the user to merge changes or to restart the business conversation with non-stale data).
The Session is disconnected from any underlying JDBC connection when waiting for user interaction. This ap-
proach is the most efficient in terms of database access. The application need not concern itself with version
checking or with reattaching detached instances, nor does it have to reload instances in every database transac-
tion.
// foo is an instance loaded earlier by the old session

Transaction t = session.beginTransaction(); // Obtain a new JDBC connection, start transaction
session.flush(); // Only for last transaction in conversation

t.commit(); // Also return JDBC connection
session.close(); // Only for last transaction in conversation
The foo object still knows which Session it was loaded in. Beginning a new database transaction on an old ses-
sion obtains a new connection and resumes the session. Committing a database transaction disconnects a ses-
sion from the JDBC connection and returns the connection to the pool. After reconnection, to force a version
check on data you aren't updating, you may call Session.lock() with LockMode.READ on any objects that
might have been updated by another transaction. You don't need to lock any data that you are updating. Usually
you would set FlushMode.NEVER on an extended Session, so that only the last database transaction cycle is al-
lowed to actually persist all modifications made in this conversation. Hence, only this last database transaction
would include the flush() operation, and then also close() the session to end the conversation.
This pattern is problematic if the Session is too big to be stored during user think time, e.g. an HttpSession
should be kept as small as possible. As the Session is also the (mandatory) first-level cache and contains all
loaded objects, we can probably use this strategy only for a few request/response cycles. You should use a Ses-
sion only for a single conversation, as it will soon also have stale data.
(Note that earlier Hibernate versions required explicit disconnection and reconnection of a Session. These
methods are deprecated, as beginning and ending a transaction has the same effect.)
Also note that you should keep the disconnected Session close to the persistence layer. In other words, use an
EJB stateful session bean to hold the Session in a three-tier environment, and don't transfer it to the web layer
(or even serialize it to a separate tier) to store it in the HttpSession.
The extended session pattern, or session-per-conversation, is more difficult to implement with automatic cur-
rent session context management. You need to supply your own implementation of the CurrentSessionCon-
text for this, see the Hibernate Wiki for examples.
11.3.3. Detached objects and automatic versioning
Hibernate 3.1.1 130

Each interaction with the persistent store occurs in a new Session. However, the same persistent instances are
reused for each interaction with the database. The application manipulates the state of detached instances ori-
ginally loaded in another Session and then reattaches them using Session.update(), Ses-
sion.saveOrUpdate(), or Session.merge().
// foo is an instance loaded by a previous Session

session = factory.openSession();
Transaction t = session.beginTransaction();
session.saveOrUpdate(foo); // Use merge() if "foo" might have been loaded already
t.commit();
session.close();
Again, Hibernate will check instance versions during flush, throwing an exception if conflicting updates oc-
cured.
You may also call lock() instead of update() and use LockMode.READ (performing a version check, bypassing
all caches) if you are sure that the object has not been modified.
11.3.4. Customizing automatic versioning
You may disable Hibernate's automatic version increment for particular properties and collections by setting the
optimistic-lock mapping attribute to false. Hibernate will then no longer increment versions if the property
is dirty.
Legacy database schemas are often static and can't be modified. Or, other applications might also access the
same database and don't know how to handle version numbers or even timestamps. In both cases, versioning
can't rely on a particular column in a table. To force a version check without a version or timestamp property
mapping, with a comparison of the state of all fields in a row, turn on optimistic-lock="all" in the <class>
mapping. Note that this concepetually only works if Hibernate can compare the old and new state, i.e. if you
use a single long Session and not session-per-request-with-detached-objects.
Sometimes concurrent modification can be permitted as long as the changes that have been made don't overlap.
If you set optimistic-lock="dirty" when mapping the <class>, Hibernate will only compare dirty fields dur-
ing flush.
In both cases, with dedicated version/timestamp columns or with full/dirty field comparison, Hibernate uses a
single UPDATE statement (with an appropriate WHERE clause) per entity to execute the version check and update
the information. If you use transitive persistence to cascade reattachment to associated entities, Hibernate might
execute uneccessary updates. This is usually not a problem, but on update triggers in the database might be ex-
ecuted even when no changes have been made to detached instances. You can customize this behavior by set-
ting select-before-update="true" in the <class> mapping, forcing Hibernate to SELECT the instance to en-
sure that changes did actually occur, before updating the row.
11.4. Pessimistic Locking

It is not intended that users spend much time worring about locking strategies. Its usually enough to specify an
isolation level for the JDBC connections and then simply let the database do all the work. However, advanced
users may sometimes wish to obtain exclusive pessimistic locks, or re-obtain locks at the start of a new transac-
tion.
Hibernate will always use the locking mechanism of the database, never lock objects in memory!
Hibernate 3.1.1 131

The LockMode class defines the different lock levels that may be acquired by Hibernate. A lock is obtained by
the following mechanisms:
• LockMode.WRITE is acquired automatically when Hibernate updates or inserts a row.

• LockMode.UPGRADE may be acquired upon explicit user request using SELECT ... FOR UPDATE on databases
which support that syntax.
• LockMode.UPGRADE_NOWAIT may be acquired upon explicit user request using a SELECT ... FOR UPDATE
NOWAIT under Oracle.
• LockMode.READ is acquired automatically when Hibernate reads data under Repeatable Read or Serializable
isolation level. May be re-acquired by explicit user request.
• LockMode.NONE represents the absence of a lock. All objects switch to this lock mode at the end of a Trans-
action. Objects associated with the session via a call to update() or saveOrUpdate() also start out in this
lock mode.
The "explicit user request" is expressed in one of the following ways:
• A call to Session.load(), specifying a LockMode.

• A call to Session.lock().
• A call to Query.setLockMode().
If Session.load() is called with UPGRADE or UPGRADE_NOWAIT, and the requested object was not yet loaded by
the session, the object is loaded using SELECT ... FOR UPDATE. If load() is called for an object that is already
loaded with a less restrictive lock than the one requested, Hibernate calls lock() for that object.
Session.lock() performs a version number check if the specified lock mode is READ, UPGRADE or UP-
GRADE_NOWAIT. (In the case of UPGRADE or UPGRADE_NOWAIT, SELECT ... FOR UPDATE is used.)
If the database does not support the requested lock mode, Hibernate will use an appropriate alternate mode
(instead of throwing an exception). This ensures that applications will be portable.
11.5. Connection Release Modes

The legacy (2.x) behavior of Hibernate in regards to JDBC connection management was that a Session would
obtain a connection when it was first needed and then hold unto that connection until the session was closed.
Hibernate 3.x introduced the notion of connection release modes to tell a session how to handle its JDBC con-
nections. Note that the following discussion is pertinent only to connections provided through a configured
ConnectionProvider; user-supplied connections are outside the breadth of this discussion. The different re-
lease modes are identified by the enumerated values of org.hibernate.ConnectionReleaseMode:
• ON_CLOSE - is essentially the legacy behavior described above. The Hibernate session obatins a connection
when it first needs to perform some JDBC access and holds unto that connection until the session is closed.
• AFTER_TRANSACTION - says to release connections after a org.hibernate.Transaction has completed.
• AFTER_STATEMENT (also referred to as aggressive release) - says to release connections after each and every
statement execution. This aggressive releasing is skipped if that statement leaves open resources associated
with the given session; currently the only situation where this occurs is through the use of
org.hibernate.ScrollableResults.
The configuration parameter hibernate.connection.release_mode is used to specify which release mode to

use. The possible values:
• auto (the default) - this choice delegates to the release

mode returned by the
org.hibernate.transaction.TransactionFactory.getDefaultReleaseMode() method. For JTATransac-
tionFactory, this returns ConnectionReleaseMode.AFTER_STATEMENT; for JDBCTransactionFactory,
Hibernate 3.1.1 132

this returns ConnectionReleaseMode.AFTER_TRANSACTION. It is rarely a good idea to change this de-

fault behavior as failures due to the value of this setting tend to indicate bugs and/or invalid assumptions in
user code.
• on_close - says to use ConnectionReleaseMode.ON_CLOSE. This setting is left for backwards compatibil-
ity, but its use is highly discouraged.
• after_transaction - says to use ConnectionReleaseMode.AFTER_TRANSACTION. This setting should
not be used in JTA environments. Also note that with ConnectionReleaseMode.AFTER_TRANSACTION,
if a session is considered to be in auto-commit mode connections will be released as if the release mode
were AFTER_STATEMENT.
• after_statement - says to use ConnectionReleaseMode.AFTER_STATEMENT. Additionally, the con-
figured ConnectionProvider is consulted to see if it supports this setting
(supportsAggressiveRelease()). If not, the release mode is reset to ConnectionRelease-
Mode.AFTER_TRANSACTION. This setting is only safe in environments where we can either re-acquire
the same underlying JDBC connection each time we make a call into ConnectionPro-
vider.getConnection() or in auto-commit environments where it does not matter whether we get back the
same connection.
Hibernate 3.1.1 133

Chapter 12. Interceptors and events
It is often useful for the application to react to certain events that occur inside Hibernate. This allows imple-
mentation of certain kinds of generic functionality, and extension of Hibernate functionality.
12.1. Interceptors
The Interceptor interface provides callbacks from the session to the application allowing the application to in-
spect and/or manipulate properties of a persistent object before it is saved, updated, deleted or loaded. One pos-
sible use for this is to track auditing information. For example, the following Interceptor automatically sets
the createTimestamp when an Auditable is created and updates the lastUpdateTimestamp property when an
Auditable is updated.
You may either implement Interceptor directly or (better) extend EmptyInterceptor.
package org.hibernate.test;
import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.Iterator;
import org.hibernate.EmptyInterceptor;
import org.hibernate.Transaction;
import org.hibernate.type.Type;
public class AuditInterceptor extends EmptyInterceptor {
private int updates;

private int creates;
private int loads;
public void onDelete(Object entity,

Serializable id,
Object[] state,
String[] propertyNames,
Type[] types) {
// do nothing
}
public boolean onFlushDirty(Object entity,

Serializable id,
Object[] currentState,
Object[] previousState,
Type[] types) {
if ( entity instanceof Auditable ) {

updates++;
for ( int i=0; i < propertyNames.length; i++ ) {
if ( "lastUpdateTimestamp".equals( propertyNames[i] ) ) {
currentState[i] = new Date();
return true;
}
}
}
return false;
}
public boolean onLoad(Object entity,

Serializable id,
Object[] state,
Type[] types) {
Hibernate 3.1.1 134

Interceptors and events
loads++;
}
return false;
}
public boolean onSave(Object entity,

Serializable id,
Object[] state,
Type[] types) {

creates++;
for ( int i=0; i<propertyNames.length; i++ ) {
if ( "createTimestamp".equals( propertyNames[i] ) ) {
state[i] = new Date();
return true;
}
}
}
return false;
}
public void afterTransactionCompletion(Transaction tx) {

if ( tx.wasCommitted() ) {
System.out.println("Creations: " + creates + ", Updates: " + updates, "Loads: " + loads);
}
updates=0;
creates=0;
loads=0;
}
Interceptors come in two flavors: Session-scoped and SessionFactory-scoped.
A Session-scoped interceptor is specified when a session is opened using one of the overloaded SessionFact-
ory.openSession() methods accepting an Interceptor.
Session session = sf.openSession( new AuditInterceptor() );
A SessionFactory-scoped interceptor is registered with the Configuration object prior to building the Ses-
sionFactory. In this case, the supplied interceptor will be applied to all sessions opened from that Session-
Factory; this is true unless a session is opened explicitly specifying the interceptor to use. SessionFactory-
scoped interceptors must be thread safe, taking care to not store session-specific state since multiple sessions
will use this interceptor (potentially) concurrently.
new Configuration().setInterceptor( new AuditInterceptor() );
12.2. Event system

If you have to react to particular events in your persistence layer, you may also use the Hibernate3 event archi-
tecture. The event system can be used in addition or as a replacement for interceptors.
Essentially all of the methods of the Session interface correlate to an event. You have a LoadEvent, a
FlushEvent, etc (consult the XML configuration-file DTD or the org.hibernate.event package for the full
list of defined event types). When a request is made of one of these methods, the Hibernate Session generates
an appropriate event and passes it to the configured event listeners for that type. Out-of-the-box, these listeners
implement the same processing in which those methods always resulted. However, you are free to implement a
customization of one of the listener interfaces (i.e., the LoadEvent is processed by the registered implemenation
Hibernate 3.1.1 135

of the LoadEventListener interface), in which case their implementation would be responsible for processing
any load() requests made of the Session.
The listeners should be considered effectively singletons; meaning, they are shared between requests, and thus
should not save any state as instance variables.
A custom listener should implement the appropriate interface for the event it wants to process and/or extend
one of the convenience base classes (or even the default event listeners used by Hibernate out-of-the-box as
these are declared non-final for this purpose). Custom listeners can either be registered programmatically
through the Configuration object, or specified in the Hibernate configuration XML (declarative configuration
through the properties file is not supported). Here's an example of a custom load event listener:
public class MyLoadListener implements LoadEventListener {

// this is the single method defined by the LoadEventListener interface
public void onLoad(LoadEvent event, LoadEventListener.LoadType loadType)
throws HibernateException {
if ( !MySecurity.isAuthorized( event.getEntityClassName(), event.getEntityId() ) ) {
throw MySecurityException("Unauthorized access");
}
}
}
You also need a configuration entry telling Hibernate to use the listener in addition to the default listener:
<session-factory>
...
<event type="load">
<listener class="com.eg.MyLoadListener"/>
<listener class="org.hibernate.event.def.DefaultLoadEventListener"/>
</event>
</session-factory>
Instead, you may register it programmatically:
Configuration cfg = new Configuration();

LoadEventListener[] stack = { new MyLoadListener(), new DefaultLoadEventListener() };
cfg.EventListeners().setLoadEventListeners(stack);
Listeners registered declaratively cannot share instances. If the same class name is used in multiple
<listener/> elements, each reference will result in a separate instance of that class. If you need the capability
to share listener instances between listener types you must use the programmatic registration approach.
Why implement an interface and define the specific type during configuration? Well, a listener implementation
could implement multiple event listener interfaces. Having the type additionally defined during registration
makes it easier to turn custom listeners on or off during configuration.
12.3. Hibernate declarative security

Usually, declarative security in Hibernate applications is managed in a session facade layer. Now, Hibernate3
allows certain actions to be permissioned via JACC, and authorized via JAAS. This is optional functionality
built on top of the event architecture.
First, you must configure the appropriate event listeners, to enable the use of JAAS authorization.
<listener type="pre-delete" class="org.hibernate.secure.JACCPreDeleteEventListener"/>

<listener type="pre-update" class="org.hibernate.secure.JACCPreUpdateEventListener"/>
<listener type="pre-insert" class="org.hibernate.secure.JACCPreInsertEventListener"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 136

<listener type="pre-load" class="org.hibernate.secure.JACCPreLoadEventListener"/>
Note that <listener type="..." class="..."/> is just a shorthand for <event type="..."><listener
class="..."/></event> when there is exactly one listener for a particular event type.
Next, still in hibernate.cfg.xml, bind the permissions to roles:
<grant role="admin" entity-name="User" actions="insert,update,read"/>

<grant role="su" entity-name="User" actions="*"/>
The role names are the roles understood by your JACC provider.
Hibernate 3.1.1 137

Chapter 13. Batch processing
A naive approach to inserting 100 000 rows in the database using Hibernate might look like this:
Session session = sessionFactory.openSession();

Transaction tx = session.beginTransaction();
for ( int i=0; i<100000; i++ ) {
Customer customer = new Customer(.....);
session.save(customer);
}
tx.commit();
session.close();
This would fall over with an OutOfMemoryException somewhere around the 50 000th row. That's because Hi-
bernate caches all the newly inserted Customer instances in the session-level cache.
In this chapter we'll show you how to avoid this problem. First, however, if you are doing batch processing, it is
absolutely critical that you enable the use of JDBC batching, if you intend to achieve reasonable performance.
Set the JDBC batch size to a reasonable number (say, 10-50):
hibernate.jdbc.batch_size 20
You also might like to do this kind of work in a process where interaction with the second-level cache is com-
pletely disabled:
hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache false
However, this is not absolutely necessary, since we can explicitly set the CacheMode to disable interaction with
the second-level cache.
13.1. Batch inserts

When making new objects persistent, you must flush() and then clear() the session regularly, to control the
size of the first-level cache.

for ( int i=0; i<100000; i++ ) {

Customer customer = new Customer(.....);
session.save(customer);
if ( i % 20 == 0 ) { //20, same as the JDBC batch size
//flush a batch of inserts and release memory:
session.flush();
session.clear();
}
}
tx.commit();
session.close();
13.2. Batch updates

For retrieving and updating data the same ideas apply. In addition, you need to use scroll() to take advantage
of server-side cursors for queries that return many rows of data.
Hibernate 3.1.1 138

Batch processing

ScrollableResults customers = session.getNamedQuery("GetCustomers")

.setCacheMode(CacheMode.IGNORE)
.scroll(ScrollMode.FORWARD_ONLY);
int count=0;
while ( customers.next() ) {
Customer customer = (Customer) customers.get(0);
customer.updateStuff(...);
if ( ++count % 20 == 0 ) {
//flush a batch of updates and release memory:
session.flush();
session.clear();
}
}
tx.commit();
session.close();
13.3. The StatelessSession interface

Alternatively, Hibernate provides a command-oriented API that may be used for streaming data to and from the
database in the form of detached objects. A StatelessSession has no persistence context associated with it
and does not provide many of the higher-level lifecycle semantics. In particular, a stateless session does not im-
plement a first-level cache nor interact with any second-level or query cache. It does not implement transaction-
al write-behind or automatic dirty checking. Operations performed using a stateless session do not ever cascade
to associated instances. Collections are ignored by a stateless session. Operations performed via a stateless ses-
sion bypass Hibernate's event model and interceptors. Stateless sessions are vulnerable to data aliasing effects,
due to the lack of a first-level cache. A stateless session is a lower-level abstraction, much closer to the underly-
ing JDBC.
StatelessSession session = sessionFactory.openStatelessSession();

ScrollableResults customers = session.getNamedQuery("GetCustomers")

.scroll(ScrollMode.FORWARD_ONLY);
while ( customers.next() ) {
Customer customer = (Customer) customers.get(0);
customer.updateStuff(...);
session.update(customer);
}
tx.commit();
session.close();
Note that in this code example, the Customer instances returned by the query are immediately detached. They
are never associated with any persistence context.
The insert(), update() and delete() operations defined by the StatelessSession interface are considered
to be direct database row-level operations, which result in immediate execution of a SQL INSERT, UPDATE or
DELETE respectively. Thus, they have very different semantics to the save(), saveOrUpdate() and delete()
operations defined by the Session interface.
13.4. DML-style operations

As already discussed, automatic and transparent object/relational mapping is concerned with the management
of object state. This implies that the object state is available in memory, hence manipulating (using the SQL
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Batch processing
Data Manipulation Language (DML) statements: INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) data directly in the database will
not affect in-memory state. However, Hibernate provides methods for bulk SQL-style DML statement execu-
tion which are performed through the Hibernate Query Language (Chapter 14, HQL: The Hibernate Query
Language).
The pseudo-syntax for UPDATE and DELETE statements is: ( UPDATE | DELETE ) FROM? EntityName (WHERE
where_conditions)?. Some points to note:
• In the from-clause, the FROM keyword is optional

• There can only be a single entity named in the from-clause; it can optionally be aliased. If the entity name is
aliased, then any property references must be qualified using that alias; if the entity name is not aliased,
then it is illegal for any property references to be qualified.
• No Section 14.4, “Forms of join syntax” (either implicit or explicit) can be specified in a bulk HQL query.
Sub-queries may be used in the where-clause; the subqueries, themselves, may contain joins.
• The where-clause is also optional.
As an example, to execute an HQL UPDATE, use the Query.executeUpdate() method (the method is named for
those familiar with JDBC's PreparedStatement.executeUpdate()):

String hqlUpdate = "update Customer c set c.name = :newName where c.name = :oldName";
// or String hqlUpdate = "update Customer set name = :newName where name = :oldName";
int updatedEntities = s.createQuery( hqlUpdate )
.setString( "newName", newName )
.setString( "oldName", oldName )
.executeUpdate();
tx.commit();
session.close();
To execute an HQL DELETE, use the same Query.executeUpdate() method:

String hqlDelete = "delete Customer c where c.name = :oldName";

// or String hqlDelete = "delete Customer where name = :oldName";
int deletedEntities = s.createQuery( hqlDelete )
.setString( "oldName", oldName )
.executeUpdate();
tx.commit();
session.close();
The int value returned by the Query.executeUpdate() method indicate the number of entities effected by the
operation. Consider this may or may not correlate to the number of rows effected in the database. An HQL bulk
operation might result in multiple actual SQL statements being executed, for joined-subclass, for example. The
returned number indicates the number of actual entities affected by the statement. Going back to the example of
joined-subclass, a delete against one of the subclasses may actually result in deletes against not just the table to
which that subclass is mapped, but also the "root" table and potentially joined-subclass tables further down the
inheritence hierarchy.
The pseudo-syntax for INSERT statements is: INSERT INTO EntityName properties_list select_statement.
Some points to note:
• Only the INSERT INTO ... SELECT ... form is supported; not the INSERT INTO ... VALUES ... form.
The properties_list is analogous to the column speficiation in the SQL INSERT statement. For entities in-
volved in mapped inheritence, only properties directly defined on that given class-level can be used in the
Hibernate 3.1.1 140

Batch processing
properties_list. Superclass properties are not allowed; and subclass properties do not make sense. In other
words, INSERT statements are inherently non-polymorphic.
• select_statement can be any valid HQL select query, with the caveat that the return types must match the
types expected by the insert. Currently, this is checked during query compilation rather than allowing the
check to relegate to the database. Note however that this might cause problems between Hibernate Types
which are equivalent as opposed to equal. This might cause issues with mismatches between a property
defined as a org.hibernate.type.DateType and a property defined as a
org.hibernate.type.TimestampType, even though the database might not make a distinction or might be
able to handle the conversion.
• For the id property, the insert statement gives you two options. You can either explicitly specify the id prop-
erty in the properties_list (in which case its value is taken from the corresponding select expression) or omit
it from the properties_list (in which case a generated value is used). This later option is only available when
using id generators that operate in the database; attempting to use this option with any "in memory" type
generators will cause an exception during parsing. Note that for the purposes of this discussion, in-database
generators are considered to be org.hibernate.id.SequenceGenerator (and its subclasses) and any imple-
mentors of org.hibernate.id.PostInsertIdentifierGenerator. The most notable exception here is
org.hibernate.id.TableHiLoGenerator, which cannot be used because it does not expose a selectable
way to get its values.
• For properties mapped as either version or timestamp, the insert statement gives you two options. You can
either specify the property in the properties_list (in which case its value is taken from the corresponding se-
lect expressions) or omit it from the properties_list (in which case the seed value defined by the
org.hibernate.type.VersionType is used).
An example HQL INSERT statement execution:

String hqlInsert = "insert into DelinquentAccount (id, name) select c.id, c.name from Customer c where
int createdEntities = s.createQuery( hqlInsert )
.executeUpdate();
tx.commit();
session.close();
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Chapter 14. HQL: The Hibernate Query Language
Hibernate is equipped with an extremely powerful query language that (quite intentionally) looks very much
like SQL. But don't be fooled by the syntax; HQL is fully object-oriented, understanding notions like inherit-
ence, polymorphism and association.
14.1. Case Sensitivity

Queries are case-insensitive, except for names of Java classes and properties. So SeLeCT is the same as sELEct
is the same as SELECT but org.hibernate.eg.FOO is not org.hibernate.eg.Foo and foo.barSet is not
foo.BARSET.
This manual uses lowercase HQL keywords. Some users find queries with uppercase keywords more readable,
but we find this convention ugly when embedded in Java code.
14.2. The from clause

The simplest possible Hibernate query is of the form:
from eg.Cat
which simply returns all instances of the class eg.Cat. We don't usually need to qualify the class name, since
auto-import is the default. So we almost always just write:
from Cat
Most of the time, you will need to assign an alias, since you will want to refer to the Cat in other parts of the
query.
from Cat as cat
This query assigns the alias cat to Cat instances, so we could use that alias later in the query. The as keyword
is optional; we could also write:
from Cat cat
Multiple classes may appear, resulting in a cartesian product or "cross" join.
from Formula, Parameter
from Formula as form, Parameter as param
It is considered good practice to name query aliases using an initial lowercase, consistent with Java naming
standards for local variables (eg. domesticCat).
14.3. Associations and joins

We may also assign aliases to associated entities, or even to elements of a collection of values, using a join.
Hibernate 3.1.1 142

HQL: The Hibernate Query Language
from Cat as cat

inner join cat.mate as mate
left outer join cat.kittens as kitten
from Cat as cat left join cat.mate.kittens as kittens
from Formula form full join form.parameter param
The supported join types are borrowed from ANSI SQL
• inner join
• left outer join
• right outer join
• full join (not usually useful)
The inner join, left outer join and right outer join constructs may be abbreviated.
from Cat as cat

join cat.mate as mate
left join cat.kittens as kitten
You may supply extra join conditions using the HQL with keyword.
from Cat as cat

left join cat.kittens as kitten
with kitten.bodyWeight > 10.0
In addition, a "fetch" join allows associations or collections of values to be initialized along with their parent
objects, using a single select. This is particularly useful in the case of a collection. It effectively overrides the
outer join and lazy declarations of the mapping file for associations and collections. See Section 19.1,
“Fetching strategies” for more information.
from Cat as cat

inner join fetch cat.mate
left join fetch cat.kittens
A fetch join does not usually need to assign an alias, because the associated objects should not be used in the
where clause (or any other clause). Also, the associated objects are not returned directly in the query results. In-
stead, they may be accessed via the parent object. The only reason we might need an alias is if we are recurs-
ively join fetching a further collection:
from Cat as cat

inner join fetch cat.mate
left join fetch cat.kittens child
left join fetch child.kittens
Note that the fetch construct may not be used in queries called using iterate() (though scroll() can be
used). Nor should fetch be used together with setMaxResults() or setFirstResult() as these operations are
based on the result rows, which usually contain duplicates for eager collection fetching, hence, the number of
rows is not what you'd expect. Nor may fetch be used together with an ad hoc with condition. It is possible to
create a cartesian product by join fetching more than one collection in a query, so take care in this case. Join
fetching multiple collection roles also sometimes gives unexpected results for bag mappings, so be careful
about how you formulate your queries in this case. Finally, note that full join fetch and right join fetch
are not meaningful.
If you are using property-level lazy fetching (with bytecode instrumentation), it is possible to force Hibernate to
Hibernate 3.1.1 143

fetch the lazy properties immediately (in the first query) using fetch all properties.
from Document fetch all properties order by name
from Document doc fetch all properties where lower(doc.name) like '%cats%'
14.4. Forms of join syntax

HQL supports two forms of association joining: implicit and explicit.
The queries shown in the previous section all use the explicit form where the join keyword is explicitly used
in the from clause. This is the recommended form.
The implicit form does not use the join keyword. Instead, the associations are "dereferenced" using dot-
notation. implicit joins can appear in any of the HQL clauses. implicit join result in inner joins in the result-
ing SQL statement.
from Cat as cat where cat.mate.name like '%s%'
14.5. The select clause

The select clause picks which objects and properties to return in the query result set. Consider:
select mate
from Cat as cat
inner join cat.mate as mate
The query will select mates of other Cats. Actually, you may express this query more compactly as:
select cat.mate from Cat cat
Queries may return properties of any value type including properties of component type:
select cat.name from DomesticCat cat

where cat.name like 'fri%'
select cust.name.firstName from Customer as cust
Queries may return multiple objects and/or properties as an array of type Object[],
select mother, offspr, mate.name

from DomesticCat as mother
inner join mother.mate as mate
left outer join mother.kittens as offspr
or as a List,
select new list(mother, offspr, mate.name)

inner join mother.mate as mate
left outer join mother.kittens as offspr
or as an actual typesafe Java object,
Hibernate 3.1.1 144

select new Family(mother, mate, offspr)

join mother.mate as mate
left join mother.kittens as offspr
assuming that the class Family has an appropriate constructor.
You may assign aliases to selected expressions using as:
select max(bodyWeight) as max, min(bodyWeight) as min, count(*) as n

from Cat cat
This is most useful when used together with select new map:
select new map( max(bodyWeight) as max, min(bodyWeight) as min, count(*) as n )

from Cat cat
This query returns a Map from aliases to selected values.
14.6. Aggregate functions

HQL queries may even return the results of aggregate functions on properties:
select avg(cat.weight), sum(cat.weight), max(cat.weight), count(cat)

from Cat cat
The supported aggregate functions are
• avg(...), sum(...), min(...), max(...)

• count(*)
• count(...), count(distinct ...), count(all...)
You may use arithmetic operators, concatenation, and recognized SQL functions in the select clause:
select cat.weight + sum(kitten.weight)

from Cat cat
join cat.kittens kitten
group by cat.id, cat.weight
select firstName||' '||initial||' '||upper(lastName) from Person
The distinct and all keywords may be used and have the same semantics as in SQL.
select distinct cat.name from Cat cat
select count(distinct cat.name), count(cat) from Cat cat
14.7. Polymorphic queries

A query like:
from Cat as cat
returns instances not only of Cat, but also of subclasses like DomesticCat. Hibernate queries may name any
Hibernate 3.1.1 145

Java class or interface in the from clause. The query will return instances of all persistent classes that extend
that class or implement the interface. The following query would return all persistent objects:
from java.lang.Object o
The interface Named might be implemented by various persistent classes:
from Named n, Named m where n.name = m.name
Note that these last two queries will require more than one SQL SELECT. This means that the order by clause
does not correctly order the whole result set. (It also means you can't call these queries using Query.scroll().)
14.8. The where clause

The where clause allows you to narrow the list of instances returned. If no alias exists, you may refer to proper-
ties by name:
from Cat where name='Fritz'
If there is an alias, use a qualified property name:
from Cat as cat where cat.name='Fritz'
returns instances of Cat named 'Fritz'.
select foo
from Foo foo, Bar bar
where foo.startDate = bar.date
will return all instances of Foo for which there exists an instance of bar with a date property equal to the
startDate property of the Foo. Compound path expressions make the where clause extremely powerful. Con-
sider:
from Cat cat where cat.mate.name is not null
This query translates to an SQL query with a table (inner) join. If you were to write something like
from Foo foo

where foo.bar.baz.customer.address.city is not null
you would end up with a query that would require four table joins in SQL.
The = operator may be used to compare not only properties, but also instances:
from Cat cat, Cat rival where cat.mate = rival.mate
select cat, mate

from Cat cat, Cat mate
where cat.mate = mate
The special property (lowercase) id may be used to reference the unique identifier of an object. (You may also
use its property name.)
from Cat as cat where cat.id = 123
Hibernate 3.1.1 146

from Cat as cat where cat.mate.id = 69
The second query is efficient. No table join is required!
Properties of composite identifiers may also be used. Suppose Person has a composite identifier consisting of
country and medicareNumber.
from bank.Person person

where person.id.country = 'AU'
and person.id.medicareNumber = 123456
from bank.Account account

where account.owner.id.country = 'AU'
and account.owner.id.medicareNumber = 123456
Once again, the second query requires no table join.
Likewise, the special property class accesses the discriminator value of an instance in the case of polymorphic
persistence. A Java class name embedded in the where clause will be translated to its discriminator value.
from Cat cat where cat.class = DomesticCat
You may also specify properties of components or composite user types (and of components of components,
etc). Never try to use a path-expression that ends in a property of component type (as opposed to a property of a
component). For example, if store.owner is an entity with a component address
store.owner.address.city // okay
store.owner.address // error!
An "any" type has the special properties id and class, allowing us to express a join in the following way
(where AuditLog.item is a property mapped with <any>).
from AuditLog log, Payment payment

where log.item.class = 'Payment' and log.item.id = payment.id
Notice that log.item.class and payment.class would refer to the values of completely different database
columns in the above query.
14.9. Expressions
Expressions allowed in the where clause include most of the kind of things you could write in SQL:
• mathematical operators +, -, *, /
• binary comparison operators =, >=, <=, <>, !=, like
• logical operations and, or, not
• Parentheses ( ), indicating grouping
• in, not in, between, is null, is not null, is empty, is not empty, member of and not member of
• "Simple" case, case ... when ... then ... else ... end, and "searched" case, case when ... then
... else ... end
• string concatenation ...||... or concat(...,...)
• current_date(), current_time(), current_timestamp()
• second(...), minute(...), hour(...), day(...), month(...), year(...),
• Any function or operator defined by EJB-QL 3.0: substring(), trim(), lower(), upper(), length(),
locate(), abs(), sqrt(), bit_length(), mod()
Hibernate 3.1.1 147

• coalesce() and nullif()

• str() for converting numeric or temporal values to a readable string
• cast(... as ...), where the second argument is the name of a Hibernate type, and extract(... from
...) if ANSI cast() and extract() is supported by the underlying database
• the HQL index() function, that applies to aliases of a joined indexed collection
• HQL functions that take collection-valued path expressions: size(), minelement(), maxelement(),
minindex(), maxindex(), along with the special elements() and indices functions which may be quanti-
fied using some, all, exists, any, in.
• Any database-supported SQL scalar function like sign(), trunc(), rtrim(), sin()
• JDBC-style positional parameters ?
• named parameters :name, :start_date, :x1
• SQL literals 'foo', 69, 6.66E+2, '1970-01-01 10:00:01.0'
• Java public static final constants eg.Color.TABBY
in and between may be used as follows:
from DomesticCat cat where cat.name between 'A' and 'B'
from DomesticCat cat where cat.name in ( 'Foo', 'Bar', 'Baz' )
and the negated forms may be written
from DomesticCat cat where cat.name not between 'A' and 'B'
from DomesticCat cat where cat.name not in ( 'Foo', 'Bar', 'Baz' )
Likewise, is null and is not null may be used to test for null values.
Booleans may be easily used in expressions by declaring HQL query substitutions in Hibernate configuration:
<property name="hibernate.query.substitutions">true 1, false 0</property>
This will replace the keywords true and false with the literals 1 and 0 in the translated SQL from this HQL:
from Cat cat where cat.alive = true
You may test the size of a collection with the special property size, or the special size() function.
from Cat cat where cat.kittens.size > 0
from Cat cat where size(cat.kittens) > 0
For indexed collections, you may refer to the minimum and maximum indices using minindex and maxindex
functions. Similarly, you may refer to the minimum and maximum elements of a collection of basic type using
the minelement and maxelement functions.
from Calendar cal where maxelement(cal.holidays) > current_date
from Order order where maxindex(order.items) > 100
from Order order where minelement(order.items) > 10000
The SQL functions any, some, all, exists, in are supported when passed the element or index set of a col-
lection (elements and indices functions) or the result of a subquery (see below).
Hibernate 3.1.1 148

select mother from Cat as mother, Cat as kit

where kit in elements(foo.kittens)
select p from NameList list, Person p

where p.name = some elements(list.names)
from Cat cat where exists elements(cat.kittens)
from Player p where 3 > all elements(p.scores)
from Show show where 'fizard' in indices(show.acts)
Note that these constructs - size, elements, indices, minindex, maxindex, minelement, maxelement - may
only be used in the where clause in Hibernate3.
Elements of indexed collections (arrays, lists, maps) may be referred to by index (in a where clause only):
from Order order where order.items[0].id = 1234
select person from Person person, Calendar calendar

where calendar.holidays['national day'] = person.birthDay
and person.nationality.calendar = calendar
select item from Item item, Order order

where order.items[ order.deliveredItemIndices[0] ] = item and order.id = 11

where order.items[ maxindex(order.items) ] = item and order.id = 11
The expression inside [] may even be an arithmetic expression.

where order.items[ size(order.items) - 1 ] = item
HQL also provides the built-in index() function, for elements of a one-to-many association or collection of
values.
select item, index(item) from Order order

join order.items item
where index(item) < 5
Scalar SQL functions supported by the underlying database may be used
from DomesticCat cat where upper(cat.name) like 'FRI%'
If you are not yet convinced by all this, think how much longer and less readable the following query would be
in SQL:
select cust
from Product prod,
Store store
inner join store.customers cust
where prod.name = 'widget'
and store.location.name in ( 'Melbourne', 'Sydney' )
and prod = all elements(cust.currentOrder.lineItems)
Hint: something like
Hibernate 3.1.1 149

SELECT cust.name, cust.address, cust.phone, cust.id, cust.current_order

FROM customers cust,
stores store,
locations loc,
store_customers sc,
product prod
WHERE prod.name = 'widget'
AND store.loc_id = loc.id
AND loc.name IN ( 'Melbourne', 'Sydney' )
AND sc.store_id = store.id
AND sc.cust_id = cust.id
AND prod.id = ALL(
SELECT item.prod_id
FROM line_items item, orders o
WHERE item.order_id = o.id
AND cust.current_order = o.id
)
14.10. The order by clause

The list returned by a query may be ordered by any property of a returned class or components:
from DomesticCat cat

order by cat.name asc, cat.weight desc, cat.birthdate
The optional asc or desc indicate ascending or descending order respectively.
14.11. The group by clause

A query that returns aggregate values may be grouped by any property of a returned class or components:
select cat.color, sum(cat.weight), count(cat)

from Cat cat
group by cat.color
select foo.id, avg(name), max(name)

from Foo foo join foo.names name
group by foo.id
A having clause is also allowed.
select cat.color, sum(cat.weight), count(cat)

from Cat cat
group by cat.color
having cat.color in (eg.Color.TABBY, eg.Color.BLACK)
SQL functions and aggregate functions are allowed in the having and order by clauses, if supported by the un-
derlying database (eg. not in MySQL).
select cat
from Cat cat
join cat.kittens kitten
group by cat
having avg(kitten.weight) > 100
order by count(kitten) asc, sum(kitten.weight) desc
Note that neither the group by clause nor the order by clause may contain arithmetic expressions.
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14.12. Subqueries
For databases that support subselects, Hibernate supports subqueries within queries. A subquery must be sur-
rounded by parentheses (often by an SQL aggregate function call). Even correlated subqueries (subqueries that
refer to an alias in the outer query) are allowed.
from Cat as fatcat

where fatcat.weight > (
select avg(cat.weight) from DomesticCat cat
)
from DomesticCat as cat

where cat.name = some (
select name.nickName from Name as name
)
from Cat as cat

where not exists (
from Cat as mate where mate.mate = cat
)
from DomesticCat as cat

where cat.name not in (
select name.nickName from Name as name
)
select cat.id, (select max(kit.weight) from cat.kitten kit)

from Cat as cat
Note that HQL subqueries may occur only in the select or where clauses.
For subqueries with more than one expression in the select list, you can use a tuple constructor:
from Cat as cat

where not ( cat.name, cat.color ) in (
select cat.name, cat.color from DomesticCat cat
)
Note that on some databases (but not Oracle or HSQL), you can use tuple constructors in other contexts, for ex-
ample when querying components or composite user types:
from Person where name = ('Gavin', 'A', 'King')
Which is equivalent to the more verbose:
from Person where name.first = 'Gavin' and name.initial = 'A' and name.last = 'King')
There are two good reasons you might not want to do this kind of thing: first, it is not completely portable
between database platforms; second, the query is now dependent upon the ordering of properties in the map-
ping document.
14.13. HQL examples

Hibernate queries can be quite powerful and complex. In fact, the power of the query language is one of Hi-
bernate's main selling points. Here are some example queries very similar to queries that I used on a recent
Hibernate 3.1.1 151

project. Note that most queries you will write are much simpler than these!
The following query returns the order id, number of items and total value of the order for all unpaid orders for a
particular customer and given minimum total value, ordering the results by total value. In determining the
prices, it uses the current catalog. The resulting SQL query, against the ORDER, ORDER_LINE, PRODUCT, CATALOG
and PRICE tables has four inner joins and an (uncorrelated) subselect.
select order.id, sum(price.amount), count(item)

from Order as order
join order.lineItems as item
join item.product as product,
Catalog as catalog
join catalog.prices as price
where order.paid = false
and order.customer = :customer
and price.product = product
and catalog.effectiveDate < sysdate
and catalog.effectiveDate >= all (
select cat.effectiveDate
from Catalog as cat
where cat.effectiveDate < sysdate
)
group by order
having sum(price.amount) > :minAmount
order by sum(price.amount) desc
What a monster! Actually, in real life, I'm not very keen on subqueries, so my query was really more like this:
select order.id, sum(price.amount), count(item)

from Order as order
join order.lineItems as item
join item.product as product,
Catalog as catalog
join catalog.prices as price
where order.paid = false
and order.customer = :customer
and price.product = product
and catalog = :currentCatalog
group by order
having sum(price.amount) > :minAmount
order by sum(price.amount) desc
The next query counts the number of payments in each status, excluding all payments in the AWAIT-
ING_APPROVAL status where the most recent status change was made by the current user. It translates to an SQL
query with two inner joins and a correlated subselect against the PAYMENT, PAYMENT_STATUS and PAY-
MENT_STATUS_CHANGE tables.
select count(payment), status.name

from Payment as payment
join payment.currentStatus as status
join payment.statusChanges as statusChange
where payment.status.name <> PaymentStatus.AWAITING_APPROVAL
or (
statusChange.timeStamp = (
select max(change.timeStamp)
from PaymentStatusChange change
where change.payment = payment
)
and statusChange.user <> :currentUser
)
group by status.name, status.sortOrder
order by status.sortOrder
If I would have mapped the statusChanges collection as a list, instead of a set, the query would have been
Hibernate 3.1.1 152

much simpler to write.
select count(payment), status.name

from Payment as payment
join payment.currentStatus as status
where payment.status.name <> PaymentStatus.AWAITING_APPROVAL
or payment.statusChanges[ maxIndex(payment.statusChanges) ].user <> :currentUser
group by status.name, status.sortOrder
order by status.sortOrder
The next query uses the MS SQL Server isNull() function to return all the accounts and unpaid payments for
the organization to which the current user belongs. It translates to an SQL query with three inner joins, an outer
join and a subselect against the ACCOUNT, PAYMENT, PAYMENT_STATUS, ACCOUNT_TYPE, ORGANIZATION and
ORG_USER tables.
select account, payment

from Account as account
left outer join account.payments as payment
where :currentUser in elements(account.holder.users)
and PaymentStatus.UNPAID = isNull(payment.currentStatus.name, PaymentStatus.UNPAID)
order by account.type.sortOrder, account.accountNumber, payment.dueDate
For some databases, we would need to do away with the (correlated) subselect.
select account, payment

from Account as account
join account.holder.users as user
left outer join account.payments as payment
where :currentUser = user
and PaymentStatus.UNPAID = isNull(payment.currentStatus.name, PaymentStatus.UNPAID)
order by account.type.sortOrder, account.accountNumber, payment.dueDate
14.14. Bulk update and delete

HQL now supports update, delete and insert ... select ... statements. See Section 13.4, “DML-style op-
erations” for details.
14.15. Tips & Tricks

You can count the number of query results without actually returning them:
( (Integer) session.iterate("select count(*) from ....").next() ).intValue()
To order a result by the size of a collection, use the following query:
select usr.id, usr.name

from User as usr
left join usr.messages as msg
group by usr.id, usr.name
order by count(msg)
If your database supports subselects, you can place a condition upon selection size in the where clause of your
query:
from User usr where size(usr.messages) >= 1
If your database doesn't support subselects, use the following query:
Hibernate 3.1.1 153


from User usr.name
join usr.messages msg
having count(msg) >= 1
As this solution can't return a User with zero messages because of the inner join, the following form is also use-
ful:

from User as usr
left join usr.messages as msg
having count(msg) = 0
Properties of a JavaBean can be bound to named query parameters:
Query q = s.createQuery("from foo Foo as foo where foo.name=:name and foo.size=:size");

q.setProperties(fooBean); // fooBean has getName() and getSize()
List foos = q.list();
Collections are pageable by using the Query interface with a filter:
Query q = s.createFilter( collection, "" ); // the trivial filter

q.setMaxResults(PAGE_SIZE);
q.setFirstResult(PAGE_SIZE * pageNumber);
List page = q.list();
Collection elements may be ordered or grouped using a query filter:
Collection orderedCollection = s.filter( collection, "order by this.amount" );

Collection counts = s.filter( collection, "select this.type, count(this) group by this.type" );
You can find the size of a collection without initializing it:
( (Integer) session.iterate("select count(*) from ....").next() ).intValue();
Hibernate 3.1.1 154

Chapter 15. Criteria Queries
Hibernate features an intuitive, extensible criteria query API.
15.1. Creating a Criteria instance

The interface org.hibernate.Criteria represents a query against a particular persistent class. The Session is
a factory for Criteria instances.
Criteria crit = sess.createCriteria(Cat.class);

crit.setMaxResults(50);
List cats = crit.list();
15.2. Narrowing the result set

An individual query criterion is an instance of the interface org.hibernate.criterion.Criterion. The class
org.hibernate.criterion.Restrictions defines factory methods for obtaining certain built-in Criterion
types.
List cats = sess.createCriteria(Cat.class)

.add( Restrictions.like("name", "Fritz%") )
.add( Restrictions.between("weight", minWeight, maxWeight) )
.list();
Restrictions may be grouped logically.

.add( Restrictions.or(
Restrictions.eq( "age", new Integer(0) ),
Restrictions.isNull("age")
) )
.list();

.add( Restrictions.in( "name", new String[] { "Fritz", "Izi", "Pk" } ) )
.add( Restrictions.disjunction()
.add( Restrictions.isNull("age") )
.add( Restrictions.eq("age", new Integer(0) ) )
) )
.list();
There are quite a range of built-in criterion types (Restrictions subclasses), but one that is especially useful
lets you specify SQL directly.

.add( Restrictions.sqlRestriction("lower({alias}.name) like lower(?)", "Fritz%", Hibernate.STRING)
.list();
The {alias} placeholder with be replaced by the row alias of the queried entity.
An alternative approach to obtaining a criterion is to get it from a Property instance. You can create a Prop-
erty by calling Property.forName().
Hibernate 3.1.1 155

Criteria Queries
Property age = Property.forName("age");

.add( Restrictions.disjunction()
.add( age.isNull() )
.add( age.eq( new Integer(0) ) )
) )
.add( Property.forName("name").in( new String[] { "Fritz", "Izi", "Pk" } ) )
.list();
15.3. Ordering the results

You may order the results using org.hibernate.criterion.Order.

.add( Restrictions.like("name", "F%")
.addOrder( Order.asc("name") )
.addOrder( Order.desc("age") )
.setMaxResults(50)
.list();

.add( Property.forName("name").like("F%") )
.addOrder( Property.forName("name").asc() )
.addOrder( Property.forName("age").desc() )
.setMaxResults(50)
.list();
15.4. Associations
You may easily specify constraints upon related entities by navigating associations using createCriteria().

.add( Restrictions.like("name", "F%") )
.createCriteria("kittens")
.add( Restrictions.like("name", "F%") )
.list();
note that the second createCriteria() returns a new instance of Criteria, which refers to the elements of the
kittens collection.
The following, alternate form is useful in certain circumstances.

.createAlias("kittens", "kt")
.createAlias("mate", "mt")
.add( Restrictions.eqProperty("kt.name", "mt.name") )
.list();
(createAlias() does not create a new instance of Criteria.)
Note that the kittens collections held by the Cat instances returned by the previous two queries are not pre-
filtered by the criteria! If you wish to retrieve just the kittens that match the criteria, you must use a Result-
Transformer.
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Criteria Queries
.createCriteria("kittens", "kt")
.add( Restrictions.eq("name", "F%") )
.setResultTransformer(Criteria.ALIAS_TO_ENTITY_MAP)
.list();
Iterator iter = cats.iterator();
while ( iter.hasNext() ) {
Map map = (Map) iter.next();
Cat cat = (Cat) map.get(Criteria.ROOT_ALIAS);
Cat kitten = (Cat) map.get("kt");
}
15.5. Dynamic association fetching

You may specify association fetching semantics at runtime using setFetchMode().

.setFetchMode("mate", FetchMode.EAGER)
.setFetchMode("kittens", FetchMode.EAGER)
.list();
This query will fetch both mate and kittens by outer join. See Section 19.1, “Fetching strategies” for more in-
formation.
15.6. Example queries

The class org.hibernate.criterion.Example allows you to construct a query criterion from a given instance.
Cat cat = new Cat();

cat.setSex('F');
cat.setColor(Color.BLACK);
List results = session.createCriteria(Cat.class)
.add( Example.create(cat) )
.list();
Version properties, identifiers and associations are ignored. By default, null valued properties are excluded.
You can adjust how the Example is applied.
Example example = Example.create(cat)

.excludeZeroes() //exclude zero valued properties
.excludeProperty("color") //exclude the property named "color"
.ignoreCase() //perform case insensitive string comparisons
.enableLike(); //use like for string comparisons
.add(example)
.list();
You can even use examples to place criteria upon associated objects.

.add( Example.create(cat) )
.createCriteria("mate")
.add( Example.create( cat.getMate() ) )
.list();
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Criteria Queries
15.7. Projections, aggregation and grouping

The class org.hibernate.criterion.Projections is a factory for Projection instances. We apply a projec-
tion to a query by calling setProjection().

.setProjection( Projections.rowCount() )
.add( Restrictions.eq("color", Color.BLACK) )
.list();

.setProjection( Projections.projectionList()
.add( Projections.rowCount() )
.add( Projections.avg("weight") )
.add( Projections.max("weight") )
.add( Projections.groupProperty("color") )
)
.list();
There is no explicit "group by" necessary in a criteria query. Certain projection types are defined to be grouping
projections, which also appear in the SQL group by clause.
An alias may optionally be assigned to a projection, so that the projected value may be referred to in restrictions
or orderings. Here are two different ways to do this:

.setProjection( Projections.alias( Projections.groupProperty("color"), "colr" ) )
.addOrder( Order.asc("colr") )
.list();

.setProjection( Projections.groupProperty("color").as("colr") )
.addOrder( Order.asc("colr") )
.list();
The alias() and as() methods simply wrap a projection instance in another, aliased, instance of Projection.
As a shortcut, you can assign an alias when you add the projection to a projection list:

.add( Projections.rowCount(), "catCountByColor" )
.add( Projections.avg("weight"), "avgWeight" )
.add( Projections.max("weight"), "maxWeight" )
.add( Projections.groupProperty("color"), "color" )
)
.addOrder( Order.desc("catCountByColor") )
.addOrder( Order.desc("avgWeight") )
.list();
List results = session.createCriteria(Domestic.class, "cat")

.createAlias("kittens", "kit")
.add( Projections.property("cat.name"), "catName" )
.add( Projections.property("kit.name"), "kitName" )
)
.addOrder( Order.asc("catName") )
.addOrder( Order.asc("kitName") )
.list();
You can also use Property.forName() to express projections:
Hibernate 3.1.1 158

Criteria Queries

.setProjection( Property.forName("name") )
.add( Property.forName("color").eq(Color.BLACK) )
.list();

.add( Projections.rowCount().as("catCountByColor") )
.add( Property.forName("weight").avg().as("avgWeight") )
.add( Property.forName("weight").max().as("maxWeight") )
.add( Property.forName("color").group().as("color" )
)
.addOrder( Order.desc("catCountByColor") )
.addOrder( Order.desc("avgWeight") )
.list();
15.8. Detached queries and subqueries

The DetachedCriteria class lets you create a query outside the scope of a session, and then later execute it us-
ing some arbitrary Session.
DetachedCriteria query = DetachedCriteria.forClass(Cat.class)

.add( Property.forName("sex").eq('F') );
Session session = ....;

Transaction txn = session.beginTransaction();
List results = query.getExecutableCriteria(session).setMaxResults(100).list();
txn.commit();
session.close();
A DetachedCriteria may also be used to express a subquery. Criterion instances involving subqueries may be
obtained via Subqueries or Property.
DetachedCriteria avgWeight = DetachedCriteria.forClass(Cat.class)

.setProjection( Property.forName("weight").avg() );
session.createCriteria(Cat.class)
.add( Property.forName("weight).gt(avgWeight) )
.list();
DetachedCriteria weights = DetachedCriteria.forClass(Cat.class)

.setProjection( Property.forName("weight") );
session.createCriteria(Cat.class)
.add( Subqueries.geAll("weight", weights) )
.list();
Even correlated subqueries are possible:
DetachedCriteria avgWeightForSex = DetachedCriteria.forClass(Cat.class, "cat2")

.setProjection( Property.forName("weight").avg() )
.add( Property.forName("cat2.sex").eqProperty("cat.sex") );
session.createCriteria(Cat.class, "cat")
.add( Property.forName("weight).gt(avgWeightForSex) )
.list();
15.9. Queries by natural identifier

For most queries, including criteria queries, the query cache is not very efficient, because query cache invalida-
tion occurs too frequently. However, there is one special kind of query where we can optimize the cache inval-
Hibernate 3.1.1 159

Criteria Queries
idation algorithm: lookups by a constant natural key. In some applications, this kind of query occurs frequently.
The criteria API provides special provision for this use case.
First, you should map the natural key of your entity using <natural-id>, and enable use of the second-level
cache.
<class name="User">
<cache usage="read-write"/>
<id name="id">
<generator class="increment"/>
</id>
<natural-id>
<property name="org"/>
</natural-id>
<property name="password"/>
</class>
Note that this functionality is not intended for use with entities with mutable natural keys.
Next, enable the Hibernate query cache.
Now, Restrictions.naturalId() allows us to make use of the more efficient cache algorithm.
session.createCriteria(User.class)
.add( Restrictions.naturalId()
.set("name", "gavin")
.set("org", "hb")
).setCacheable(true)
.uniqueResult();
Hibernate 3.1.1 160

Chapter 16. Native SQL
You may also express queries in the native SQL dialect of your database. This is useful if you want to utilize
database specific features such as query hints or the CONNECT keyword in Oracle. It also provides a clean migra-
tion path from a direct SQL/JDBC based application to Hibernate.
Hibernate3 allows you to specify handwritten SQL (including stored procedures) for all create, update, delete,
and load operations.
16.1. Using a SQLQuery

Execution of native SQL queries is controlled via the SQLQuery interface, which is obtained by calling Ses-
sion.createSQLQuery(). In extremely simple cases, we can use the following form:
List cats = sess.createSQLQuery("select * from cats")

.addEntity(Cat.class)
.list();
This query specified:
• the SQL query string
• the entity returned by the query
Here, the result set column names are assumed to be the same as the column names specified in the mapping
document. This can be problematic for SQL queries which join multiple tables, since the same column names
may appear in more than one table. The following form is not vulnerable to column name duplication:
List cats = sess.createSQLQuery("select {cat.*} from cats cat")

.addEntity("cat", Cat.class)
.list();
This query specified:
• the SQL query string, with a placeholder for Hibernate to inject the column aliases
• the entity returned by the query, and its SQL table alias
The addEntity() method associates the SQL table alias with the returned entity class, and determines the
shape of the query result set.
The addJoin() method may be used to load associations to other entities and collections.
List cats = sess.createSQLQuery(

"select {cat.*}, {kitten.*} from cats cat, cats kitten where kitten.mother = cat.id"
)
.addJoin("kitten", "cat.kittens")
.list();
A native SQL query might return a simple scalar value or a combination of scalars and entities.
Double max = (Double) sess.createSQLQuery("select max(cat.weight) as maxWeight from cats cat")

.addScalar("maxWeight", Hibernate.DOUBLE);
Hibernate 3.1.1 161

Native SQL
.uniqueResult();
You can alternatively describe the resultset mapping informations in your hbm files and use them for your
queries
List cats = sess.createSQLQuery(

"select {cat.*}, {kitten.*} from cats cat, cats kitten where kitten.mother = cat.id"
)
.setResultSetMapping("catAndKitten")
.list();
16.2. Alias and property references

The {cat.*} notation used above is a shorthand for "all properties". Alternatively, you may list the columns ex-
plicity, but even this case we let Hibernate inject the SQL column aliases for each property. The placeholder for
a column alias is just the property name qualified by the table alias. In the following example, we retrieve Cats
from a different table (cat_log) to the one declared in the mapping metadata. Notice that we may even use the
property aliases in the where clause if we like.
The {}-syntax is not required for named queries. See Section 16.3, “Named SQL queries”
String sql = "select cat.originalId as {cat.id}, " +

"cat.mateid as {cat.mate}, cat.sex as {cat.sex}, " +
"cat.weight*10 as {cat.weight}, cat.name as {cat.name} " +
"from cat_log cat where {cat.mate} = :catId"
List loggedCats = sess.createSQLQuery(sql)

.setLong("catId", catId)
.list();
Note: if you list each property explicitly, you must include all properties of the class and its subclasses!
The following table shows the different possibilities of using the alias injection. Note: the alias names in the
result are examples, each alias will have a unique and probably different name when used.
Table 16.1. Alias injection names
Description Syntax Example
A simple property {[aliasname].[p A_NAME as {item.name}

ropertyname]
A composite {[aliasname].[c CURRENCY as {item.amount.currency},

property omponent- VALUE as {item.amount.value}
name].[property
name]}
Discriminator of {[aliasname].cl DISC as {item.class}

an entity ass}
All properties of {[aliasname].*} {item.*}

an entity
A collection key {[aliasname].ke ORGID as {coll.key}

y}
Hibernate 3.1.1 162

Native SQL
Description Syntax Example
The id of an col- {[aliasname].id EMPID as {coll.id}

lection }
The element of an {[aliasname].el XID as {coll.element}

collection ement}
Property of the {[aliasname].el NAME as {coll.element.name}

element in the ement.[property
collection name]}
All properties of {[aliasname].el {coll.element.*}

the element in the ement.*}
collection
All properties of {[aliasname].*} {coll.*}

the the collection
16.3. Named SQL queries

Named SQL queries may be defined in the mapping document and called in exactly the same way as a named
HQL query. In this case, we do not need to call addEntity().
<sql-query name="persons">
<return alias="person" class="eg.Person"/>
SELECT person.NAME AS {person.name},
person.AGE AS {person.age},
person.SEX AS {person.sex}
FROM PERSON person
WHERE person.NAME LIKE :namePattern
</sql-query>
List people = sess.getNamedQuery("persons")

.setString("namePattern", namePattern)
.setMaxResults(50)
.list();
The <return-join> and <load-collection> elements are used to join associations and define queries which
initialize collections, respectively.
<sql-query name="personsWith">
<return-join alias="address" property="person.mailingAddress"/>
person.SEX AS {person.sex},
adddress.STREET AS {address.street},
adddress.CITY AS {address.city},
adddress.STATE AS {address.state},
adddress.ZIP AS {address.zip}
FROM PERSON person
JOIN ADDRESS adddress
ON person.ID = address.PERSON_ID AND address.TYPE='MAILING'
</sql-query>
A named SQL query may return a scalar value. You must declare the column alias and Hibernate type using the
<return-scalar> element:
Hibernate 3.1.1 163

Native SQL
<sql-query name="mySqlQuery">
<return-scalar column="name" type="string"/>
<return-scalar column="age" type="long"/>
SELECT p.NAME AS name,
p.AGE AS age,
FROM PERSON p WHERE p.NAME LIKE 'Hiber%'
</sql-query>
You can externalize the resultset mapping informations in a <resultset> element to either reuse them accross
several named queries or through the setResultSetMapping() API.
<resultset name="personAddress">
<return-join alias="address" property="person.mailingAddress"/>
</resultset>
<sql-query name="personsWith" resultset-ref="personAddress">

person.SEX AS {person.sex},
adddress.STREET AS {address.street},
adddress.CITY AS {address.city},
adddress.STATE AS {address.state},
adddress.ZIP AS {address.zip}
FROM PERSON person
JOIN ADDRESS adddress
ON person.ID = address.PERSON_ID AND address.TYPE='MAILING'
</sql-query>
16.3.1. Using return-property to explicitly specify column/alias names
With <return-property> you can explicitly tell Hibernate what column aliases to use, instead of using the {}-
syntax to let Hibernate inject its own aliases.
<sql-query name="mySqlQuery">
<return alias="person" class="eg.Person">
<return-property name="name" column="myName"/>
<return-property name="age" column="myAge"/>
<return-property name="sex" column="mySex"/>
</return>
SELECT person.NAME AS myName,
person.AGE AS myAge,
person.SEX AS mySex,
FROM PERSON person WHERE person.NAME LIKE :name
</sql-query>
<return-property> also works with multiple columns. This solves a limitation with the {}-syntax which can
not allow fine grained control of multi-column properties.
<sql-query name="organizationCurrentEmployments">
<return alias="emp" class="Employment">
<return-property name="salary">
<return-column name="VALUE"/>
<return-column name="CURRENCY"/>
</return-property>
<return-property name="endDate" column="myEndDate"/>
</return>
SELECT EMPLOYEE AS {emp.employee}, EMPLOYER AS {emp.employer},
STARTDATE AS {emp.startDate}, ENDDATE AS {emp.endDate},
REGIONCODE as {emp.regionCode}, EID AS {emp.id}, VALUE, CURRENCY
FROM EMPLOYMENT
WHERE EMPLOYER = :id AND ENDDATE IS NULL
ORDER BY STARTDATE ASC
</sql-query>
Hibernate 3.1.1 164

Native SQL
Notice that in this example we used <return-property> in combination with the {}-syntax for injection. Al-
lowing users to choose how they want to refer column and properties.
If your mapping has a discriminator you must use <return-discriminator> to specify the discriminator
column.
16.3.2. Using stored procedures for querying
Hibernate 3 introduces support for queries via stored procedures and functions. Most of the following docu-
mentation is equivalent for both. The stored procedure/function must return a resultset as the first out-parameter
to be able to work with Hibernate. An example of such a stored function in Oracle 9 and higher is as follows:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION selectAllEmployments

RETURN SYS_REFCURSOR
AS
st_cursor SYS_REFCURSOR;
BEGIN
OPEN st_cursor FOR
SELECT EMPLOYEE, EMPLOYER,
STARTDATE, ENDDATE,
REGIONCODE, EID, VALUE, CURRENCY
FROM EMPLOYMENT;
RETURN st_cursor;
END;
To use this query in Hibernate you need to map it via a named query.
<sql-query name="selectAllEmployees_SP" callable="true">

<return alias="emp" class="Employment">
<return-property name="employee" column="EMPLOYEE"/>
<return-property name="employer" column="EMPLOYER"/>
<return-property name="startDate" column="STARTDATE"/>
<return-property name="endDate" column="ENDDATE"/>
<return-property name="regionCode" column="REGIONCODE"/>
<return-property name="id" column="EID"/>
<return-property name="salary">
<return-column name="VALUE"/>
<return-column name="CURRENCY"/>
</return-property>
</return>
{ ? = call selectAllEmployments() }
</sql-query>
Notice stored procedures currently only return scalars and entities. <return-join> and <load-collection> are
not supported.
Rules/limitations for using stored procedures
To use stored procedures with Hibernate the procedures/functions have to follow some rules. If they do not fol-
low those rules they are not usable with Hibernate. If you still want to use these procedures you have to execute
them via session.connection(). The rules are different for each database, since database vendors have differ-
ent stored procedure semantics/syntax.
Stored procedure queries can't be paged with setFirstResult()/setMaxResults().
Recommended call form is standard SQL92: { ? = call functionName(<parameters>) } or { ? = call

procedureName(<parameters>}. Native call syntax is not supported.
For Oracle the following rules apply:
Hibernate 3.1.1 165

Native SQL
• A function must return a result set. The first parameter of a procedure must be an OUT that returns a result
set. This is done by using a SYS_REFCURSOR type in Oracle 9 or 10. In Oracle you need to define a REF
CURSOR type, see Oracle literature.
For Sybase or MS SQL server the following rules apply:
• The procedure must return a result set. Note that since these servers can/will return multiple result sets and
update counts, Hibernate will iterate the results and take the first result that is a result set as its return value.
Everything else will be discarded.
• If you can enable SET NOCOUNT ON in your procedure it will probably be more efficient, but this is not a re-
quirement.
16.4. Custom SQL for create, update and delete

Hibernate3 can use custom SQL statements for create, update, and delete operations. The class and collection
persisters in Hibernate already contain a set of configuration time generated strings (insertsql, deletesql, updat-
esql etc.). The mapping tags <sql-insert>, <sql-delete>, and <sql-update> override these strings:
<id name="id">
</id>
<property name="name" not-null="true"/>
<sql-insert>INSERT INTO PERSON (NAME, ID) VALUES ( UPPER(?), ? )</sql-insert>
<sql-update>UPDATE PERSON SET NAME=UPPER(?) WHERE ID=?</sql-update>
<sql-delete>DELETE FROM PERSON WHERE ID=?</sql-delete>
</class>
The SQL is directly executed in your database, so you are free to use any dialect you like. This will of course
reduce the portability of your mapping if you use database specific SQL.
Stored procedures are supported if the callable attribute is set:
<id name="id">
</id>
<sql-insert callable="true">{call createPerson (?, ?)}</sql-insert>
<sql-delete callable="true">{? = call deletePerson (?)}</sql-delete>
<sql-update callable="true">{? = call updatePerson (?, ?)}</sql-update>
</class>
The order of the positional parameters are currently vital, as they must be in the same sequence as Hibernate
expects them.
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 in the mapping files as that will
override the Hibernate generated static sql.)
The stored procedures are in most cases (read: better do it than not) required to return the number of rows inser-
ted/updated/deleted, as Hibernate has some runtime checks for the success of the statement. Hibernate always
registers the first statement parameter as a numeric output parameter for the CUD operations:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION updatePerson (uid IN NUMBER, uname IN VARCHAR2)

RETURN NUMBER IS
BEGIN
Hibernate 3.1.1 166

Native SQL
update PERSON
set
NAME = uname,
where
ID = uid;
return SQL%ROWCOUNT;
END updatePerson;
16.5. Custom SQL for loading

You may also declare your own SQL (or HQL) queries for entity loading:
<sql-query name="person">
<return alias="pers" class="Person" lock-mode="upgrade"/>
SELECT NAME AS {pers.name}, ID AS {pers.id}
FROM PERSON
WHERE ID=?
FOR UPDATE
</sql-query>
This is just a named query declaration, as discussed earlier. You may reference this named query in a class
mapping:
<id name="id">
</id>
<loader query-ref="person"/>
</class>
This even works with stored procedures.
You may even define a query for collection loading:
<set name="employments" inverse="true">

<key/>
<one-to-many class="Employment"/>
<loader query-ref="employments"/>
</set>
<sql-query name="employments">
<load-collection alias="emp" role="Person.employments"/>
SELECT {emp.*}
FROM EMPLOYMENT emp
WHERE EMPLOYER = :id
ORDER BY STARTDATE ASC, EMPLOYEE ASC
</sql-query>
You could even define an entity loader that loads a collection by join fetching:
<sql-query name="person">
<return alias="pers" class="Person"/>
<return-join alias="emp" property="pers.employments"/>
SELECT NAME AS {pers.*}, {emp.*}
FROM PERSON pers
LEFT OUTER JOIN EMPLOYMENT emp
ON pers.ID = emp.PERSON_ID
WHERE ID=?
</sql-query>
Hibernate 3.1.1 167

Chapter 17. Filtering data
Hibernate3 provides an innovative new approach to handling data with "visibility" rules. A Hibernate filter is a
global, named, parameterized filter that may be enabled or disabled for a particular Hibernate session.
17.1. Hibernate filters

Hibernate3 adds the ability to pre-define filter criteria and attach those filters at both a class and a collection
level. A filter criteria is the ability to define a restriction clause very similiar to the existing "where" attribute
available on the class and various collection elements. Except these filter conditions can be parameterized. The
application can then make the decision at runtime whether given filters should be enabled and what their para-
meter values should be. Filters can be used like database views, but parameterized inside the application.
In order to use filters, they must first be defined and then attached to the appropriate mapping elements. To
define a filter, use the <filter-def/> element within a <hibernate-mapping/> element:
<filter-def name="myFilter">
<filter-param name="myFilterParam" type="string"/>
</filter-def>
Then, this filter can be attached to a class:
<class name="myClass" ...>

...
<filter name="myFilter" condition=":myFilterParam = MY_FILTERED_COLUMN"/>
</class>
or, to a collection:
<set ...>
<filter name="myFilter" condition=":myFilterParam = MY_FILTERED_COLUMN"/>
</set>
or, even to both (or multiples of each) at the same time.
The methods on Session are: enableFilter(String filterName), getEnabledFilter(String filterName),

and disableFilter(String filterName). By default, filters are not enabled for a given session; they must be
explcitly enabled through use of the Session.enabledFilter() method, which returns an instance of the Fil-
ter interface. Using the simple filter defined above, this would look like:
session.enableFilter("myFilter").setParameter("myFilterParam", "some-value");
Note that methods on the org.hibernate.Filter interface do allow the method-chaining common to much of Hi-
bernate.
A full example, using temporal data with an effective record date pattern:
<filter-def name="effectiveDate">
<filter-param name="asOfDate" type="date"/>
</filter-def>
<class name="Employee" ...>

...
<many-to-one name="department" column="dept_id" class="Department"/>
<property name="effectiveStartDate" type="date" column="eff_start_dt"/>
<property name="effectiveEndDate" type="date" column="eff_end_dt"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 168

Filtering data
...

<filter name="effectiveDate"
condition=":asOfDate BETWEEN eff_start_dt and eff_end_dt"/>
</class>
<class name="Department" ...>

...
<set name="employees" lazy="true">
<key column="dept_id"/>
<one-to-many class="Employee"/>
<filter name="effectiveDate"
condition=":asOfDate BETWEEN eff_start_dt and eff_end_dt"/>
</set>
</class>
Then, in order to ensure that you always get back currently effective records, simply enable the filter on the ses-
sion prior to retrieving employee data:
Session session = ...;

session.enabledFilter("effectiveDate").setParameter("asOfDate", new Date());
List results = session.createQuery("from Employee as e where e.salary > :targetSalary")
.setLong("targetSalary", new Long(1000000))
.list();
In the HQL above, even though we only explicitly mentioned a salary constraint on the results, because of the
enabled filter the query will return only currently active employees who have a salary greater than a million
dollars.
Note: if you plan on using filters with outer joining (either through HQL or load fetching) be careful of the dir-
ection of the condition expression. Its safest to set this up for left outer joining; in general, place the parameter
first followed by the column name(s) after the operator.
Hibernate 3.1.1 169

Chapter 18. XML Mapping
Note that this is an experimental feature in Hibernate 3.0 and is under extremely active development.
18.1. Working with XML data

Hibernate lets you work with persistent XML data in much the same way you work with persistent POJOs. A
parsed XML tree can be thought of as just another way to represent the relational data at the object level, in-
stead of POJOs.
Hibernate supports dom4j as API for manipulating XML trees. You can write queries that retrieve dom4j trees
from the database and have any modification you make to the tree automatically synchronized to the database.
You can even take an XML document, parse it using dom4j, and write it to the database with any of Hibernate's
basic operations: persist(), saveOrUpdate(), merge(), delete(), replicate() (merging is not yet sup-
ported).
This feature has many applications including data import/export, externalization of entity data via JMS or
SOAP and XSLT-based reporting.
A single mapping may be used to simultaneously map properties of a class and nodes of an XML document to
the database, or, if there is no class to map, it may be used to map just the XML.
18.1.1. Specifying XML and class mapping together
Here is an example of mapping a POJO and XML simultaneously:
<class name="Account"
table="ACCOUNTS"
node="account">
<id name="accountId"
column="ACCOUNT_ID"
node="@id"/>
<many-to-one name="customer"
column="CUSTOMER_ID"
node="customer/@id"
embed-xml="false"/>
<property name="balance"
column="BALANCE"
node="balance"/>
...
</class>
18.1.2. Specifying only an XML mapping
Here is an example where there is no POJO class:
<class entity-name="Account"
table="ACCOUNTS"
node="account">
<id name="id"
column="ACCOUNT_ID"
Hibernate 3.1.1 170

XML Mapping
node="@id"
type="string"/>
<many-to-one name="customerId"
column="CUSTOMER_ID"
node="customer/@id"
embed-xml="false"
entity-name="Customer"/>
<property name="balance"
column="BALANCE"
node="balance"
type="big_decimal"/>
...
</class>
This mapping allows you to access the data as a dom4j tree, or as a graph of property name/value pairs (java
Maps). The property names are purely logical constructs that may be referred to in HQL queries.
18.2. XML mapping metadata

Many Hibernate mapping elements accept the node attribute. This let's you specify the name of an XML attrib-
ute or element that holds the property or entity data. The format of the node attribute must be one of the follow-
ing:
• "element-name" - map to the named XML element

• "@attribute-name" - map to the named XML attribute
• "." - map to the parent element
• "element-name/@attribute-name" - map to the named attribute of the named element
For collections and single valued associations, there is an additional embed-xml attribute. If embed-xml="true",
the default, the XML tree for the associated entity (or collection of value type) will be embedded directly in the
XML tree for the entity that owns the association. Otherwise, if embed-xml="false", then only the referenced
identifier value will appear in the XML for single point associations and collections will simply not appear at
all.
You should be careful not to leave embed-xml="true" for too many associations, since XML does not deal well
with circularity!
<class name="Customer"
table="CUSTOMER"
node="customer">
<id name="id"
column="CUST_ID"
node="@id"/>
<map name="accounts"
node="."
embed-xml="true">
<key column="CUSTOMER_ID"
not-null="true"/>
<map-key column="SHORT_DESC"
node="@short-desc"
type="string"/>
<one-to-many entity-name="Account"
embed-xml="false"
node="account"/>
</map>
Hibernate 3.1.1 171

XML Mapping
<component name="name"
node="name">
<property name="firstName"
node="first-name"/>
<property name="initial"
node="initial"/>
<property name="lastName"
node="last-name"/>
</component>
...
</class>
in this case, we have decided to embed the collection of account ids, but not the actual account data. The fol-
lowing HQL query:
from Customer c left join fetch c.accounts where c.lastName like :lastName
Would return datasets such as this:
<customer id="123456789">
<account short-desc="Savings">987632567</account>
<account short-desc="Credit Card">985612323</account>
<name>
<first-name>Gavin</first-name>
<initial>A</initial>
<last-name>King</last-name>
</name>
...
</customer>
If you set embed-xml="true" on the <one-to-many> mapping, the data might look more like this:
<customer id="123456789">
<account id="987632567" short-desc="Savings">
<customer id="123456789"/>
<balance>100.29</balance>
</account>
<account id="985612323" short-desc="Credit Card">
<customer id="123456789"/>
<balance>-2370.34</balance>
</account>
<name>
<first-name>Gavin</first-name>
<initial>A</initial>
<last-name>King</last-name>
</name>
...
</customer>
18.3. Manipulating XML data

Let's rearead and update XML documents in the application. We do this by obtaining a dom4j session:
Document doc = ....;
Session session = factory.openSession();

Session dom4jSession = session.getSession(EntityMode.DOM4J);
List results = dom4jSession

.createQuery("from Customer c left join fetch c.accounts where c.lastName like :lastName")
Hibernate 3.1.1 172

XML Mapping
.list();
for ( int i=0; i<results.size(); i++ ) {
//add the customer data to the XML document
Element customer = (Element) results.get(i);
doc.add(customer);
}
tx.commit();
session.close();
Session session = factory.openSession();

Session dom4jSession = session.getSession(EntityMode.DOM4J);
Element cust = (Element) dom4jSession.get("Customer", customerId);

for ( int i=0; i<results.size(); i++ ) {
Element customer = (Element) results.get(i);
//change the customer name in the XML and database
Element name = customer.element("name");
name.element("first-name").setText(firstName);
name.element("initial").setText(initial);
name.element("last-name").setText(lastName);
}
tx.commit();
session.close();
It is extremely useful to combine this feature with Hibernate's replicate() operation to implement XML-
based data import/export.
Hibernate 3.1.1 173

Chapter 19. Improving performance
19.1. Fetching strategies

A fetching strategy is the strategy Hibernate will use for retrieving associated objects if the application needs to
navigate the association. Fetch strategies may be declared in the O/R mapping metadata, or over-ridden by a
particular HQL or Criteria query.
Hibernate3 defines the following fetching strategies:
• Join fetching - Hibernate retrieves the associated instance or collection in the same SELECT, using an OUTER
JOIN.
• Select fetching - a second SELECT is used to retrieve the associated entity or collection. Unless you explicitly
disable lazy fetching by specifying lazy="false", this second select will only be executed when you actu-
ally access the association.
• Subselect fetching - a second SELECT is used to retrieve the associated collections for all entities retrieved in
a previous query or fetch. Unless you explicitly disable lazy fetching by specifying lazy="false", this
second select will only be executed when you actually access the association.
• Batch fetching - an optimization strategy for select fetching - Hibernate retrieves a batch of entity instances
or collections in a single SELECT, by specifying a list of primary keys or foreign keys.
Hibernate also distinguishes between:
• Immediate fetching - an association, collection or attribute is fetched immediately, when the owner is
loaded.
• Lazy collection fetching - a collection is fetched when the application invokes an operation upon that collec-
tion. (This is the default for collections.)
• "Extra-lazy" collection fetching - individual elements of the collection are accessed from the database as
needed. Hibernate tries not to fetch the whole collection into memory unless absolutely needed (suitable for
very large collections)
• Proxy fetching - a single-valued association is fetched when a method other than the identifier getter is in-
voked upon the associated object.
• "No-proxy" fetching - a single-valued association is fetched when the instance variable is accessed. Com-
pared to proxy fetching, this approach is less lazy (the association is fetched even when only the identifier is
accessed) but more transparent, since no proxy is visible to the application. This approach requires build-
time bytecode instrumentation and is rarely necessary.
• Lazy attribute fetching - an attribute or single valued association is fetched when the instance variable is ac-
cessed. This approach requires buildtime bytecode instrumentation and is rarely necessary.
We have two orthogonal notions here: when is the association fetched, and how is it fetched (what SQL is
used). Don't confuse them! We use fetch to tune performance. We may use lazy to define a contract for what
data is always available in any detached instance of a particular class.
Hibernate 3.1.1 174

Improving performance
19.1.1. Working with lazy associations
By default, Hibernate3 uses lazy select fetching for collections and lazy proxy fetching for single-valued asso-
ciations. These defaults make sense for almost all associations in almost all applications.
Note: if you set hibernate.default_batch_fetch_size, Hibernate will use the batch fetch optimization for
lazy fetching (this optimization may also be enabled at a more granular level).
However, lazy fetching poses one problem that you must be aware of. Access to a lazy association outside of
the context of an open Hibernate session will result in an exception. For example:
s = sessions.openSession();
Transaction tx = s.beginTransaction();
User u = (User) s.createQuery("from User u where u.name=:userName")

.setString("userName", userName).uniqueResult();
Map permissions = u.getPermissions();
tx.commit();
s.close();
Integer accessLevel = (Integer) permissions.get("accounts"); // Error!
Since the permissions collection was not initialized when the Session was closed, the collection will not be
able to load its state. Hibernate does not support lazy initialization for detached objects. The fix is to move the
code that reads from the collection to just before the transaction is committed.
Alternatively, we could use a non-lazy collection or association, by specifying lazy="false" for the associ-
ation mapping. However, it is intended that lazy initialization be used for almost all collections and associ-
ations. If you define too many non-lazy associations in your object model, Hibernate will end up needing to
fetch the entire database into memory in every transaction!
On the other hand, we often want to choose join fetching (which is non-lazy by nature) instead of select fetch-
ing in a particular transaction. We'll now see how to customize the fetching strategy. In Hibernate3, the mech-
anisms for choosing a fetch strategy are identical for single-valued associations and collections.
19.1.2. Tuning fetch strategies
Select fetching (the default) is extremely vulnerable to N+1 selects problems, so we might want to enable join
fetching in the mapping document:
<set name="permissions"
fetch="join">
<key column="userId"/>
<one-to-many class="Permission"/>
</set
<many-to-one name="mother" class="Cat" fetch="join"/>
The fetch strategy defined in the mapping document affects:
• retrieval via get() or load()
• retrieval that happens implicitly when an association is navigated
• Criteria queries
Hibernate 3.1.1 175

• HQL queries if subselect fetching is used
No matter what fetching strategy you use, the defined non-lazy graph is guaranteed to be loaded into memory.
Note that this might result in several immediate selects being used to execute a particular HQL query.
Usually, we don't use the mapping document to customize fetching. Instead, we keep the default behavior, and
override it for a particular transaction, using left join fetch in HQL. This tells Hibernate to fetch the associ-
ation eagerly in the first select, using an outer join. In the Criteria query API, you would use setFetch-
Mode(FetchMode.JOIN).
If you ever feel like you wish you could change the fetching strategy used by get() or load(), simply use a
Criteria query, for example:
User user = (User) session.createCriteria(User.class)

.setFetchMode("permissions", FetchMode.JOIN)
.add( Restrictions.idEq(userId) )
.uniqueResult();
(This is Hibernate's equivalent of what some ORM solutions call a "fetch plan".)
A completely different way to avoid problems with N+1 selects is to use the second-level cache.
19.1.3. Single-ended association proxies
Lazy fetching for collections is implemented using Hibernate's own implementation of persistent collections.
However, a different mechanism is needed for lazy behavior in single-ended associations. The target entity of
the association must be proxied. Hibernate implements lazy initializing proxies for persistent objects using
runtime bytecode enhancement (via the excellent CGLIB library).
By default, Hibernate3 generates proxies (at startup) for all persistent classes and uses them to enable lazy
fetching of many-to-one and one-to-one associations.
The mapping file may declare an interface to use as the proxy interface for that class, with the proxy attribute.
By default, Hibernate uses a subclass of the class. Note that the proxied class must implement a default con-
structor with at least package visibility. We recommend this constructor for all persistent classes!
There are some gotchas to be aware of when extending this approach to polymorphic classes, eg.
<class name="Cat" proxy="Cat">

......
<subclass name="DomesticCat">
.....
</subclass>
</class>
Firstly, instances of Cat will never be castable to DomesticCat, even if the underlying instance is an instance of
DomesticCat:
Cat cat = (Cat) session.load(Cat.class, id); // instantiate a proxy (does not hit the db)
if ( cat.isDomesticCat() ) { // hit the db to initialize the proxy
DomesticCat dc = (DomesticCat) cat; // Error!
....
}
Secondly, it is possible to break proxy ==.
Cat cat = (Cat) session.load(Cat.class, id); // instantiate a Cat proxy
Hibernate 3.1.1 176

DomesticCat dc =
(DomesticCat) session.load(DomesticCat.class, id); // acquire new DomesticCat proxy!
System.out.println(cat==dc); // false
However, the situation is not quite as bad as it looks. Even though we now have two references to different
proxy objects, the underlying instance will still be the same object:
cat.setWeight(11.0); // hit the db to initialize the proxy

System.out.println( dc.getWeight() ); // 11.0
Third, you may not use a CGLIB proxy for a final class or a class with any final methods.
Finally, if your persistent object acquires any resources upon instantiation (eg. in initializers or default con-
structor), then those resources will also be acquired by the proxy. The proxy class is an actual subclass of the
persistent class.
These problems are all due to fundamental limitations in Java's single inheritance model. If you wish to avoid
these problems your persistent classes must each implement an interface that declares its business methods.
You should specify these interfaces in the mapping file. eg.
<class name="CatImpl" proxy="Cat">

......
<subclass name="DomesticCatImpl" proxy="DomesticCat">
.....
</subclass>
</class>
where CatImpl implements the interface Cat and DomesticCatImpl implements the interface DomesticCat.
Then proxies for instances of Cat and DomesticCat may be returned by load() or iterate(). (Note that
list() does not usually return proxies.)
Cat cat = (Cat) session.load(CatImpl.class, catid);

Iterator iter = session.iterate("from CatImpl as cat where cat.name='fritz'");
Cat fritz = (Cat) iter.next();
Relationships are also lazily initialized. This means you must declare any properties to be of type Cat, not
CatImpl.
Certain operations do not require proxy initialization
• equals(), if the persistent class does not override equals()

• hashCode(), if the persistent class does not override hashCode()
• The identifier getter method
Hibernate will detect persistent classes that override equals() or hashCode().
By choosing lazy="no-proxy" instead of the default lazy="proxy", we can avoid the problems associated with
typecasting. However, we will require buildtime bytecode instrumentation, and all operations will result in im-
mediate proxy initialization.
19.1.4. Initializing collections and proxies
A LazyInitializationException will be thrown by Hibernate if an uninitialized collection or proxy is ac-

cessed outside of the scope of the Session, ie. when the entity owning the collection or having the reference to
the proxy is in the detached state.
Hibernate 3.1.1 177

Sometimes we need to ensure that a proxy or collection is initialized before closing the Session. Of course, we
can alway force initialization by calling cat.getSex() or cat.getKittens().size(), for example. But that is
confusing to readers of the code and is not convenient for generic code.
The static methods Hibernate.initialize() and Hibernate.isInitialized() provide the application with a
convenient way of working with lazily initialized collections or proxies. Hibernate.initialize(cat) will
force the initialization of a proxy, cat, as long as its Session is still open. Hibernate.initialize(
cat.getKittens() ) has a similar effect for the collection of kittens.
Another option is to keep the Session open until all needed collections and proxies have been loaded. In some
application architectures, particularly where the code that accesses data using Hibernate, and the code that uses
it are in different application layers or different physical processes, it can be a problem to ensure that the Ses-
sion is open when a collection is initialized. There are two basic ways to deal with this issue:
• In a web-based application, a servlet filter can be used to close the Session only at the very end of a user
request, once the rendering of the view is complete (the Open Session in View pattern). Of course, this
places heavy demands on the correctness of the exception handling of your application infrastructure. It is
vitally important that the Session is closed and the transaction ended before returning to the user, even
when an exception occurs during rendering of the view. See the Hibernate Wiki for examples of this "Open
Session in View" pattern.
• In an application with a separate business tier, the business logic must "prepare" all collections that will be
needed by the web tier before returning. This means that the business tier should load all the data and return
all the data already initialized to the presentation/web tier that is required for a particular use case. Usually,
the application calls Hibernate.initialize() for each collection that will be needed in the web tier (this
call must occur before the session is closed) or retrieves the collection eagerly using a Hibernate query with
a FETCH clause or a FetchMode.JOIN in Criteria. This is usually easier if you adopt the Command pattern
instead of a Session Facade.
• You may also attach a previously loaded object to a new Session with merge() or lock() before accessing
uninitialized collections (or other proxies). No, Hibernate does not, and certainly should not do this auto-
matically, since it would introduce ad hoc transaction semantics!
Sometimes you don't want to initialize a large collection, but still need some information about it (like its size)
or a subset of the data.
You can use a collection filter to get the size of a collection without initializing it:
( (Integer) s.createFilter( collection, "select count(*)" ).list().get(0) ).intValue()
The createFilter() method is also used to efficiently retrieve subsets of a collection without needing to ini-
tialize the whole collection:
s.createFilter( lazyCollection, "").setFirstResult(0).setMaxResults(10).list();
19.1.5. Using batch fetching
Hibernate can make efficient use of batch fetching, that is, Hibernate can load several uninitialized proxies if
one proxy is accessed (or collections. Batch fetching is an optimization of the lazy select fetching strategy.
There are two ways you can tune batch fetching: on the class and the collection level.
Batch fetching for classes/entities is easier to understand. Imagine you have the following situation at runtime:
Hibernate 3.1.1 178

You have 25 Cat instances loaded in a Session, each Cat has a reference to its owner, a Person. The Person
class is mapped with a proxy, lazy="true". If you now iterate through all cats and call getOwner() on each,
Hibernate will by default execute 25 SELECT statements, to retrieve the proxied owners. You can tune this beha-
vior by specifying a batch-size in the mapping of Person:
<class name="Person" batch-size="10">...</class>
Hibernate will now execute only three queries, the pattern is 10, 10, 5.
You may also enable batch fetching of collections. For example, if each Person has a lazy collection of Cats,
and 10 persons are currently loaded in the Sesssion, iterating through all persons will generate 10 SELECTs, one
for every call to getCats(). If you enable batch fetching for the cats collection in the mapping of Person, Hi-
bernate can pre-fetch collections:
<set name="cats" batch-size="3">
...
</set>
</class>
With a batch-size of 8, Hibernate will load 3, 3, 3, 1 collections in four SELECTs. Again, the value of the at-
tribute depends on the expected number of uninitialized collections in a particular Session.
Batch fetching of collections is particularly useful if you have a nested tree of items, ie. the typical bill-
of-materials pattern. (Although a nested set or a materialized path might be a better option for read-mostly
trees.)
19.1.6. Using subselect fetching
If one lazy collection or single-valued proxy has to be fetched, Hibernate loads all of them, re-running the ori-
ginal query in a subselect. This works in the same way as batch-fetching, without the piecemeal loading.
19.1.7. Using lazy property fetching
Hibernate3 supports the lazy fetching of individual properties. This optimization technique is also known as
fetch groups. Please note that this is mostly a marketing feature, as in practice, optimizing row reads is much
more important than optimization of column reads. However, only loading some properties of a class might be
useful in extreme cases, when legacy tables have hundreds of columns and the data model can not be improved.
To enable lazy property loading, set the lazy attribute on your particular property mappings:
<class name="Document">
<id name="id">
</id>
<property name="name" not-null="true" length="50"/>
<property name="summary" not-null="true" length="200" lazy="true"/>
<property name="text" not-null="true" length="2000" lazy="true"/>
</class>
Lazy property loading requires buildtime bytecode instrumentation! If your persistent classes are not enhanced,
Hibernate will silently ignore lazy property settings and fall back to immediate fetching.
For bytecode instrumentation, use the following Ant task:
<target name="instrument" depends="compile">
Hibernate 3.1.1 179

<taskdef name="instrument" classname="org.hibernate.tool.instrument.InstrumentTask">

<classpath path="${jar.path}"/>
<classpath path="${classes.dir}"/>
<classpath refid="lib.class.path"/>
</taskdef>
<instrument verbose="true">
<fileset dir="${testclasses.dir}/org/hibernate/auction/model">
<include name="*.class"/>
</fileset>
</instrument>
</target>
A different (better?) way to avoid unnecessary column reads, at least for read-only transactions is to use the
projection features of HQL or Criteria queries. This avoids the need for buildtime bytecode processing and is
certainly a prefered solution.
You may force the usual eager fetching of properties using fetch all properties in HQL.
19.2. The Second Level Cache

A Hibernate Session is a transaction-level cache of persistent data. It is possible to configure a cluster or JVM-
level (SessionFactory-level) cache on a class-by-class and collection-by-collection basis. You may even plug
in a clustered cache. Be careful. Caches are never aware of changes made to the persistent store by another ap-
plication (though they may be configured to regularly expire cached data).
By default, Hibernate uses EHCache for JVM-level caching. (JCS support is now deprecated and will be re-
moved in a future version of Hibernate.) You may choose a different implementation by specifying the name of
a class that implements org.hibernate.cache.CacheProvider using the property hibern-
ate.cache.provider_class.
Table 19.1. Cache Providers
Cache Provider class Type Cluster Safe Query Cache

Supported
Hashtable org.hibernate.cache.HashtableCacheProv memory yes

(not intended ider
for produc-
tion use)
EHCache org.hibernate.cache.EhCacheProvider memory, disk yes
OSCache org.hibernate.cache.OSCacheProvider memory, disk yes
SwarmCache org.hibernate.cache.SwarmCacheProvider clustered (ip yes (clustered

multicast) invalidation)
JBoss org.hibernate.cache.TreeCacheProvider clustered (ip yes yes (clock

TreeCache multicast), (replication) sync req.)
transactional
19.2.1. Cache mappings
Hibernate 3.1.1 180

The <cache> element of a class or collection mapping has the following form:
<cache
usage="transactional|read-write|nonstrict-read-write|read-only" (1)
region="RegionName" (2)
include="all|non-lazy" (3)
/>
(1) usage (required) specifies the caching strategy: transactional, read-write, nonstrict-read-write or
read-only
(2) region (optional, defaults to the class or collection role name) specifies the name of the second level
cache region
(3) include (optional, defaults to all) non-lazy specifies that properties of the entity mapped with
lazy="true" may not be cached when attribute-level lazy fetching is enabled
Alternatively (preferrably?), you may specify <class-cache> and <collection-cache> elements in hibern-
ate.cfg.xml.
The usage attribute specifies a cache concurrency strategy.
19.2.2. Strategy: read only
If your application needs to read but never modify instances of a persistent class, a read-only cache may be
used. This is the simplest and best performing strategy. It's even perfectly safe for use in a cluster.
<class name="eg.Immutable" mutable="false">

<cache usage="read-only"/>
....
</class>
19.2.3. Strategy: read/write
If the application needs to update data, a read-write cache might be appropriate. This cache strategy should
never be used if serializable transaction isolation level is required. If the cache is used in a JTA environment,
you must specify the property hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class, naming a strategy for obtain-
ing the JTA TransactionManager. In other environments, you should ensure that the transaction is completed
when Session.close() or Session.disconnect() is called. If you wish to use this strategy in a cluster, you
should ensure that the underlying cache implementation supports locking. The built-in cache providers do not.
<class name="eg.Cat" .... >

....
<set name="kittens" ... >
....
</set>
</class>
19.2.4. Strategy: nonstrict read/write
If the application only occasionally needs to update data (ie. if it is extremely unlikely that two transactions
would try to update the same item simultaneously) and strict transaction isolation is not required, a nonstrict-
read-write cache might be appropriate. If the cache is used in a JTA environment, you must specify hibern-
ate.transaction.manager_lookup_class. In other environments, you should ensure that the transaction is
Hibernate 3.1.1 181

completed when Session.close() or Session.disconnect() is called.
19.2.5. Strategy: transactional
The transactional cache strategy provides support for fully transactional cache providers such as JBoss
TreeCache. Such a cache may only be used in a JTA environment and you must specify hibern-
ate.transaction.manager_lookup_class.
None of the cache providers support all of the cache concurrency strategies. The following table shows which
providers are compatible with which concurrency strategies.
Table 19.2. Cache Concurrency Strategy Support
Cache read-only nonstrict- read-write transactional

read-write
Hashtable (not in- yes yes yes

tended for produc-
tion use)
EHCache yes yes yes
OSCache yes yes yes
SwarmCache yes yes
JBoss TreeCache yes yes
19.3. Managing the caches

Whenever you pass an object to save(), update() or saveOrUpdate() and whenever you retrieve an object us-
ing load(), get(), list(), iterate() or scroll(), that object is added to the internal cache of the Session.
When flush() is subsequently called, the state of that object will be synchronized with the database. If you do
not want this synchronization to occur or if you are processing a huge number of objects and need to manage
memory efficiently, the evict() method may be used to remove the object and its collections from the first-
level cache.
ScrollableResult cats = sess.createQuery("from Cat as cat").scroll(); //a huge result set

while ( cats.next() ) {
Cat cat = (Cat) cats.get(0);
doSomethingWithACat(cat);
sess.evict(cat);
}
The Session also provides a contains() method to determine if an instance belongs to the session cache.
To completely evict all objects from the session cache, call Session.clear()
For the second-level cache, there are methods defined on SessionFactory for evicting the cached state of an
instance, entire class, collection instance or entire collection role.
sessionFactory.evict(Cat.class, catId); //evict a particular Cat

sessionFactory.evict(Cat.class); //evict all Cats
sessionFactory.evictCollection("Cat.kittens", catId); //evict a particular collection of kittens
sessionFactory.evictCollection("Cat.kittens"); //evict all kitten collections
Hibernate 3.1.1 182

The CacheMode controls how a particular session interacts with the second-level cache.
• CacheMode.NORMAL - read items from and write items to the second-level cache
• CacheMode.GET - read items from the second-level cache, but don't write to the second-level cache except
when updating data
• CacheMode.PUT - write items to the second-level cache, but don't read from the second-level cache
• CacheMode.REFRESH - write items to the second-level cache, but don't read from the second-level cache, by-
pass the effect of hibernate.cache.use_minimal_puts, forcing a refresh of the second-level cache for all
items read from the database
To browse the contents of a second-level or query cache region, use the Statistics API:
Map cacheEntries = sessionFactory.getStatistics()

.getSecondLevelCacheStatistics(regionName)
.getEntries();
You'll need to enable statistics, and, optionally, force Hibernate to keep the cache entries in a more human-
understandable format:
hibernate.generate_statistics true
hibernate.cache.use_structured_entries true
19.4. The Query Cache

Query result sets may also be cached. This is only useful for queries that are run frequently with the same para-
meters. To use the query cache you must first enable it:
hibernate.cache.use_query_cache true
This setting causes the creation of two new cache regions - one holding cached query result sets
(org.hibernate.cache.StandardQueryCache), the other holding timestamps of the most recent updates to
queryable tables (org.hibernate.cache.UpdateTimestampsCache). Note that the query cache does not cache
the state of the actual entities in the result set; it caches only identifier values and results of value type. So the
query cache should always be used in conjunction with the second-level cache.
Most queries do not benefit from caching, so by default queries are not cached. To enable caching, call
Query.setCacheable(true). This call allows the query to look for existing cache results or add its results to
the cache when it is executed.
If you require fine-grained control over query cache expiration policies, you may specify a named cache region
for a particular query by calling Query.setCacheRegion().
List blogs = sess.createQuery("from Blog blog where blog.blogger = :blogger")

.setEntity("blogger", blogger)
.setMaxResults(15)
.setCacheable(true)
.setCacheRegion("frontpages")
.list();
If the query should force a

refresh of its query cache region, you should call
Query.setCacheMode(CacheMode.REFRESH). This is particularly useful in cases where underlying data may
Hibernate 3.1.1 183

have been updated via a separate process (i.e., not modified through Hibernate) and allows the application to
selectively refresh particular query result sets. This is a more efficient alternative to eviction of a query cache
region via SessionFactory.evictQueries().
19.5. Understanding Collection performance

We've already spent quite some time talking about collections. In this section we will highlight a couple more
issues about how collections behave at runtime.
19.5.1. Taxonomy
Hibernate defines three basic kinds of collections:
• collections of values
• one to many associations
• many to many associations
This classification distinguishes the various table and foreign key relationships but does not tell us quite
everything we need to know about the relational model. To fully understand the relational structure and per-
formance characteristics, we must also consider the structure of the primary key that is used by Hibernate to up-
date or delete collection rows. This suggests the following classification:
• indexed collections
• sets
• bags
All indexed collections (maps, lists, arrays) have a primary key consisting of the <key> and <index> columns.
In this case collection updates are usually extremely efficient - the primary key may be efficiently indexed and
a particular row may be efficiently located when Hibernate tries to update or delete it.
Sets have a primary key consisting of <key> and element columns. This may be less efficient for some types of
collection element, particularly composite elements or large text or binary fields; the database may not be able
to index a complex primary key as efficently. On the other hand, for one to many or many to many associ-
ations, particularly in the case of synthetic identifiers, it is likely to be just as efficient. (Side-note: if you want
SchemaExport to actually create the primary key of a <set> for you, you must declare all columns as not-
null="true".)
<idbag> mappings define a surrogate key, so they are always very efficient to update. In fact, they are the best
case.
Bags are the worst case. Since a bag permits duplicate element values and has no index column, no primary key
may be defined. Hibernate has no way of distinguishing between duplicate rows. Hibernate resolves this prob-
lem by completely removing (in a single DELETE) and recreating the collection whenever it changes. This might
be very inefficient.
Note that for a one-to-many association, the "primary key" may not be the physical primary key of the database
table - but even in this case, the above classification is still useful. (It still reflects how Hibernate "locates" indi-
vidual rows of the collection.)
Hibernate 3.1.1 184

19.5.2. Lists, maps, idbags and sets are the most efficient collections to up-
date
From the discussion above, it should be clear that indexed collections and (usually) sets allow the most efficient
operation in terms of adding, removing and updating elements.
There is, arguably, one more advantage that indexed collections have over sets for many to many associations
or collections of values. Because of the structure of a Set, Hibernate doesn't ever UPDATE a row when an ele-
ment is "changed". Changes to a Set always work via INSERT and DELETE (of individual rows). Once again, this
consideration does not apply to one to many associations.
After observing that arrays cannot be lazy, we would conclude that lists, maps and idbags are the most perform-
ant (non-inverse) collection types, with sets not far behind. Sets are expected to be the most common kind of
collection in Hibernate applications. This is because the "set" semantics are most natural in the relational mod-
el.
However, in well-designed Hibernate domain models, we usually see that most collections are in fact one-
to-many associations with inverse="true". For these associations, the update is handled by the many-to-one
end of the association, and so considerations of collection update performance simply do not apply.
19.5.3. Bags and lists are the most efficient inverse collections
Just before you ditch bags forever, there is a particular case in which bags (and also lists) are much more per-
formant than sets. For a collection with inverse="true" (the standard bidirectional one-to-many relationship
idiom, for example) we can add elements to a bag or list without needing to initialize (fetch) the bag elements!
This is because Collection.add() or Collection.addAll() must always return true for a bag or List (unlike
a Set). This can make the following common code much faster.
Parent p = (Parent) sess.load(Parent.class, id);

Child c = new Child();
c.setParent(p);
p.getChildren().add(c); //no need to fetch the collection!
sess.flush();
19.5.4. One shot delete
Occasionally, deleting collection elements one by one can be extremely inefficient. Hibernate isn't completely
stupid, so it knows not to do that in the case of an newly-empty collection (if you called list.clear(), for ex-
ample). In this case, Hibernate will issue a single DELETE and we are done!
Suppose we add a single element to a collection of size twenty and then remove two elements. Hibernate will
issue one INSERT statement and two DELETE statements (unless the collection is a bag). This is certainly desir-
able.
However, suppose that we remove eighteen elements, leaving two and then add thee new elements. There are
two possible ways to proceed
• delete eighteen rows one by one and then insert three rows
• remove the whole collection (in one SQL DELETE) and insert all five current elements (one by one)
Hibernate isn't smart enough to know that the second option is probably quicker in this case. (And it would
probably be undesirable for Hibernate to be that smart; such behaviour might confuse database triggers, etc.)
Hibernate 3.1.1 185

Fortunately, you can force this behaviour (ie. the second strategy) at any time by discarding (ie. dereferencing)
the original collection and returning a newly instantiated collection with all the current elements. This can be
very useful and powerful from time to time.
Of course, one-shot-delete does not apply to collections mapped inverse="true".
19.6. Monitoring performance

Optimization is not much use without monitoring and access to performance numbers. Hibernate provides a full
range of figures about its internal operations. Statistics in Hibernate are available per SessionFactory.
19.6.1. Monitoring a SessionFactory
You can access SessionFactory metrics in two ways. Your first option is to call sessionFact-
ory.getStatistics() and read or display the Statistics yourself.
Hibernate can also use JMX to publish metrics if you enable the StatisticsService MBean. You may enable
a single MBean for all your SessionFactory or one per factory. See the following code for minimalistic con-
figuration examples:
// MBean service registration for a specific SessionFactory

Hashtable tb = new Hashtable();
tb.put("type", "statistics");
tb.put("sessionFactory", "myFinancialApp");
ObjectName on = new ObjectName("hibernate", tb); // MBean object name
StatisticsService stats = new StatisticsService(); // MBean implementation

stats.setSessionFactory(sessionFactory); // Bind the stats to a SessionFactory
server.registerMBean(stats, on); // Register the Mbean on the server
// MBean service registration for all SessionFactory's

Hashtable tb = new Hashtable();
tb.put("type", "statistics");
tb.put("sessionFactory", "all");
ObjectName on = new ObjectName("hibernate", tb); // MBean object name
StatisticsService stats = new StatisticsService(); // MBean implementation

server.registerMBean(stats, on); // Register the MBean on the server
TODO: This doesn't make sense: In the first case, we retrieve and use the MBean directly. In the second one,
we must give the JNDI name in which the session factory is held before using it. Use hibernateStats-
Bean.setSessionFactoryJNDIName("my/JNDI/Name")
You can (de)activate the monitoring for a SessionFactory
• at configuration time, set hibernate.generate_statistics to false
• at runtime: sf.getStatistics().setStatisticsEnabled(true) or hibernateStats-

Bean.setStatisticsEnabled(true)
Statistics can be reset programatically using the clear() method. A summary can be sent to a logger (info
level) using the logSummary() method.
19.6.2. Metrics
Hibernate 3.1.1 186

Hibernate provides a number of metrics, from very basic to the specialized information only relevant in certain
scenarios. All available counters are described in the Statistics interface API, in three categories:
• Metrics related to the general Session usage, such as number of open sessions, retrieved JDBC connec-
tions, etc.
• Metrics related to he entities, collections, queries, and caches as a whole (aka global metrics),
• Detailed metrics related to a particular entity, collection, query or cache region.
For exampl,e you can check the cache hit, miss, and put ratio of entities, collections and queries, and the aver-
age time a query needs. Beware that the number of milliseconds is subject to approximation in Java. Hibernate
is tied to the JVM precision, on some platforms this might even only be accurate to 10 seconds.
Simple getters are used to access the global metrics (i.e. not tied to a particular entity, collection, cache region,
etc.). You can access the metrics of a particular entity, collection or cache region through its name, and through
its HQL or SQL representation for queries. Please refer to the Statistics, EntityStatistics, CollectionS-
tatistics, SecondLevelCacheStatistics, and QueryStatistics API Javadoc for more information. The fol-
lowing code shows a simple example:
Statistics stats = HibernateUtil.sessionFactory.getStatistics();
double queryCacheHitCount = stats.getQueryCacheHitCount();

double queryCacheMissCount = stats.getQueryCacheMissCount();
double queryCacheHitRatio =
queryCacheHitCount / (queryCacheHitCount + queryCacheMissCount);
log.info("Query Hit ratio:" + queryCacheHitRatio);
EntityStatistics entityStats =
stats.getEntityStatistics( Cat.class.getName() );
long changes =
entityStats.getInsertCount()
+ entityStats.getUpdateCount()
+ entityStats.getDeleteCount();
log.info(Cat.class.getName() + " changed " + changes + "times" );
To work on all entities, collections, queries and region caches, you can retrieve the list of names of entities, col-
lections, queries and region caches with the following methods: getQueries(), getEntityNames(), getCol-
lectionRoleNames(), and getSecondLevelCacheRegionNames().
Hibernate 3.1.1 187

Chapter 20. Toolset Guide
Roundtrip engineering with Hibernate is possible using a set of Eclipse plugins, commandline tools, as well as
Ant tasks.
The Hibernate Tools currently include plugins for the Eclipse IDE as well as Ant tasks for reverse engineering
of existing databases:
• Mapping Editor: An editor for Hibernate XML mapping files, supporting auto-completion and syntax high-
lighting. It also supports semantic auto-completion for class names and property/field names, making it
much more versatile than a normal XML editor.
• Console: The console is a new view in Eclipse. In addition to a tree overview of your console configura-
tions, you also get an interactive view of your persistent classes and their relationships. The console allows
you to execute HQL queries against your database and browse the result directly in Eclipse.
• Development Wizards: Several wizards are provided with the Hibernate Eclipse tools; you can use a wizard
to quickly generate Hibernate configuration (cfg.xml) files, or you may even completely reverse engineer
an existing database schema into POJO source files and Hibernate mapping files. The reverse engineering
wizard supports customizable templates.
• Ant Tasks:
Please refer to the Hibernate Tools package and it's documentation for more information.
However, the Hibernate main package comes bundled with an integrated tool (it can even be used from "inside"
Hibernate on-the-fly): SchemaExport aka hbm2ddl.
20.1. Automatic schema generation

DDL may be generated from your mapping files by a Hibernate utility. The generated schema includes referen-
tial integrity constraints (primary and foreign keys) for entity and collection tables. Tables and sequences are
also created for mapped identifier generators.
You must specify a SQL Dialect via the hibernate.dialect property when using this tool, as DDL is highly
vendor specific.
First, customize your mapping files to improve the generated schema.
20.1.1. Customizing the schema
Many Hibernate mapping elements define optional attributes named length, precision and scale. You may
set the length, precision and scale of a column with this attribute.
<property name="zip" length="5"/>
<property name="balance" precision="12" scale="2"/>
Some tags also accept a not-null attribute (for generating a NOT NULL constraint on table columns) and a
unique attribute (for generating UNIQUE constraint on table columns).
<many-to-one name="bar" column="barId" not-null="true"/>
Hibernate 3.1.1 188

Toolset Guide
<element column="serialNumber" type="long" not-null="true" unique="true"/>
A unique-key attribute may be used to group columns in a single unique key constraint. Currently, the spe-
cified value of the unique-key attribute is not used to name the constraint in the generated DDL, only to group
the columns in the mapping file.
<many-to-one name="org" column="orgId" unique-key="OrgEmployeeId"/>
<property name="employeeId" unique-key="OrgEmployee"/>
An index attribute specifies the name of an index that will be created using the mapped column or columns.
Multiple columns may be grouped into the same index, simply by specifying the same index name.
<property name="lastName" index="CustName"/>
<property name="firstName" index="CustName"/>
A foreign-key attribute may be used to override the name of any generated foreign key constraint.
<many-to-one name="bar" column="barId" foreign-key="FKFooBar"/>
Many mapping elements also accept a child <column> element. This is particularly useful for mapping multi-
column types:
<property name="name" type="my.customtypes.Name"/>

<column name="last" not-null="true" index="bar_idx" length="30"/>
<column name="first" not-null="true" index="bar_idx" length="20"/>
<column name="initial"/>
</property>
The default attribute lets you specify a default value for a column (you should assign the same value to the
mapped property before saving a new instance of the mapped class).
<property name="credits" type="integer" insert="false">
<column name="credits" default="10"/>
</property>
<version name="version" type="integer" insert="false">
<column name="version" default="0"/>
</property>
The sql-type attribute allows the user to override the default mapping of a Hibernate type to SQL datatype.
<property name="balance" type="float">
<column name="balance" sql-type="decimal(13,3)"/>
</property>
The check attribute allows you to specify a check constraint.
<property name="foo" type="integer">

<column name="foo" check="foo > 10"/>
</property>
Hibernate 3.1.1 189

Toolset Guide
<class name="Foo" table="foos" check="bar < 100.0">

...
<property name="bar" type="float"/>
</class>
Table 20.1. Summary
Attribute Values Interpretation
length number column length
precision number column decimal precision
scale number column decimal scale
not-null true|false specfies that the column should be non-nullable
unique true|false specifies that the column should have a unique constraint
index index_name specifies the name of a (multi-column) index
unique-key unique_key_name specifies the name of a multi-column unique constraint
foreign-key foreign_key_name specifies the name of the foreign key constraint generated
for an association, for a <one-to-one>, <many-to-one>,
<key>, or <many-to-many> mapping element. Note that in-
verse="true" sides will not be considered by SchemaEx-
port.
sql-type SQL column type overrides the default column type (attribute of <column>
element only)
default SQL expression specify a default value for the column
check SQL expression create an SQL check constraint on either column or table
The <comment> element allows you to specify comments for the generated schema.
<class name="Customer" table="CurCust">

<comment>Current customers only</comment>
...
</class>
<property name="balance">
<column name="bal">
<comment>Balance in USD</comment>
</column>
</property>
This results in a comment on table or comment on column statement in the generated DDL (where supported).
20.1.2. Running the tool
The SchemaExport tool writes a DDL script to standard out and/or executes the DDL statements.
java -cp hibernate_classpaths org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaExport options mapping_files
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Toolset Guide
Table 20.2. SchemaExport Command Line Options
Option Description
--quiet don't output the script to stdout
--drop only drop the tables
--create only create the tables
--text don't export to the database
--output=my_schema.ddl output the ddl script to a file
--naming=eg.MyNamingStrategy select a NamingStrategy
--config=hibernate.cfg.xml read Hibernate configuration from an XML file
--properties=hibernate.properties read database properties from a file
--format format the generated SQL nicely in the script
--delimiter=; set an end of line delimiter for the script
You may even embed SchemaExport in your application:
Configuration cfg = ....;

new SchemaExport(cfg).create(false, true);
20.1.3. Properties
Database properties may be specified
• as system properties with -D<property>

• in hibernate.properties
• in a named properties file with --properties
The needed properties are:
Table 20.3. SchemaExport Connection Properties
Property Name Description
hibernate.connection.driver_class jdbc driver class
hibernate.connection.url jdbc url
hibernate.connection.username database user
hibernate.connection.password user password
hibernate.dialect dialect
20.1.4. Using Ant
Hibernate 3.1.1 191

Toolset Guide
You can call SchemaExport from your Ant build script:
<target name="schemaexport">
<taskdef name="schemaexport"
classname="org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaExportTask"
classpathref="class.path"/>
<schemaexport
properties="hibernate.properties"
quiet="no"
text="no"
drop="no"
delimiter=";"
output="schema-export.sql">
<fileset dir="src">
<include name="**/*.hbm.xml"/>
</fileset>
</schemaexport>
</target>
20.1.5. Incremental schema updates
The SchemaUpdate tool will update an existing schema with "incremental" changes. Note that SchemaUpdate
depends heavily upon the JDBC metadata API, so it will not work with all JDBC drivers.
java -cp hibernate_classpaths org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaUpdate options mapping_files
Table 20.4. SchemaUpdate Command Line Options
Option Description
--quiet don't output the script to stdout
--text don't export the script to the database
--config=hibernate.cfg.xml specify a .cfg.xml file
You may embed SchemaUpdate in your application:

new SchemaUpdate(cfg).execute(false);
20.1.6. Using Ant for incremental schema updates
You can call SchemaUpdate from the Ant script:
<target name="schemaupdate">
<taskdef name="schemaupdate"
classname="org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaUpdateTask"
<schemaupdate
properties="hibernate.properties"
quiet="no">
<fileset dir="src">
Hibernate 3.1.1 192

Toolset Guide
</fileset>
</schemaupdate>
</target>
20.1.7. Schema validation
The SchemaValidator tool will validate that the existing database schema "matches" your mapping documents.
Note that SchemaValidator depends heavily upon the JDBC metadata API, so it will not work with all JDBC
drivers. This tool is extremely useful for testing.
java -cp hibernate_classpaths org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaValidator options mapping_files
Table 20.5. SchemaValidator Command Line Options
Option Description
--config=hibernate.cfg.xml specify a .cfg.xml file
You may embed SchemaValidator in your application:
new SchemaValidator(cfg).validate();
20.1.8. Using Ant for schema validation
You can call SchemaValidator from the Ant script:
<target name="schemavalidate">
<taskdef name="schemavalidator"
classname="org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaValidatorTask"
<schemavalidator
properties="hibernate.properties">
<fileset dir="src">
</fileset>
</schemaupdate>
</target>
Hibernate 3.1.1 193

Chapter 21. Example: Parent/Child
One of the very first things that new users try to do with Hibernate is to model a parent / child type relationship.
There are two different approaches to this. For various reasons the most convenient approach, especially for
new users, is to model both Parent and Child as entity classes with a <one-to-many> association from Parent
to Child. (The alternative approach is to declare the Child as a <composite-element>.) Now, it turns out that
default semantics of a one to many association (in Hibernate) are much less close to the usual semantics of a
parent / child relationship than those of a composite element mapping. We will explain how to use a bidirec-
tional one to many association with cascades to model a parent / child relationship efficiently and elegantly. It's
not at all difficult!
21.1. A note about collections

Hibernate collections are considered to be a logical part of their owning entity; never of the contained entities.
This is a crucial distinction! It has the following consequences:
• When we remove / add an object from / to a collection, the version number of the collection owner is incre-
mented.
• If an object that was removed from a collection is an instance of a value type (eg, a composite element), that
object will cease to be persistent and its state will be completely removed from the database. Likewise,
adding a value type instance to the collection will cause its state to be immediately persistent.
• On the other hand, if an entity is removed from a collection (a one-to-many or many-to-many association),
it will not be deleted, by default. This behaviour is completely consistent - a change to the internal state of
another entity should not cause the associated entity to vanish! Likewise, adding an entity to a collection
does not cause that entity to become persistent, by default.
Instead, the default behaviour is that adding an entity to a collection merely creates a link between the two en-
tities, while removing it removes the link. This is very appropriate for all sorts of cases. Where it is not appro-
priate at all is the case of a parent / child relationship, where the life of the child is bound to the lifecycle of the
parent.
21.2. Bidirectional one-to-many

Suppose we start with a simple <one-to-many> association from Parent to Child.
</set>
If we were to execute the following code
Parent p = .....;
p.getChildren().add(c);
session.save(c);
session.flush();
Hibernate would issue two SQL statements:
Hibernate 3.1.1 194

Example: Parent/Child
• an INSERT to create the record for c
• an UPDATE to create the link from p to c
This is not only inefficient, but also violates any NOT NULL constraint on the parent_id column. We can fix the
nullability constraint violation by specifying not-null="true" in the collection mapping:
<key column="parent_id" not-null="true"/>
</set>
However, this is not the recommended solution.
The underlying cause of this behaviour is that the link (the foreign key parent_id) from p to c is not considered
part of the state of the Child object and is therefore not created in the INSERT. So the solution is to make the
link part of the Child mapping.
<many-to-one name="parent" column="parent_id" not-null="true"/>
(We also need to add the parent property to the Child class.)
Now that the Child entity is managing the state of the link, we tell the collection not to update the link. We use
the inverse attribute.

</set>
The following code would be used to add a new Child
Parent p = (Parent) session.load(Parent.class, pid);

c.setParent(p);
p.getChildren().add(c);
session.save(c);
session.flush();
And now, only one SQL INSERT would be issued!
To tighten things up a bit, we could create an addChild() method of Parent.
public void addChild(Child c) {

c.setParent(this);
children.add(c);
}
Now, the code to add a Child looks like

p.addChild(c);
session.save(c);
session.flush();
21.3. Cascading lifecycle
Hibernate 3.1.1 195

The explicit call to save() is still annoying. We will address this by using cascades.
<set name="children" inverse="true" cascade="all">

</set>
This simplifies the code above to

p.addChild(c);
session.flush();
Similarly, we don't need to iterate over the children when saving or deleting a Parent. The following removes p
and all its children from the database.

session.delete(p);
session.flush();
However, this code

Child c = (Child) p.getChildren().iterator().next();
p.getChildren().remove(c);
c.setParent(null);
session.flush();
will not remove c from the database; it will ony remove the link to p (and cause a NOT NULL constraint viola-
tion, in this case). You need to explicitly delete() the Child.

Child c = (Child) p.getChildren().iterator().next();
p.getChildren().remove(c);
session.delete(c);
session.flush();
Now, in our case, a Child can't really exist without its parent. So if we remove a Child from the collection, we
really do want it to be deleted. For this, we must use cascade="all-delete-orphan".
<set name="children" inverse="true" cascade="all-delete-orphan">

</set>
Note: even though the collection mapping specifies inverse="true", cascades are still processed by iterating
the collection elements. So if you require that an object be saved, deleted or updated by cascade, you must add
it to the collection. It is not enough to simply call setParent().
21.4. Cascades and unsaved-value

Suppose we loaded up a Parent in one Session, made some changes in a UI action and wish to persist these
changes in a new session by calling update(). The Parent will contain a collection of childen and, since cas-
cading update is enabled, Hibernate needs to know which children are newly instantiated and which represent
existing rows in the database. Lets assume that both Parent and Child have genenerated identifier properties of
type Long. Hibernate will use the identifier and version/timestamp property value to determine which of the
Hibernate 3.1.1 196

children are new. (See Section 10.7, “Automatic state detection”.) In Hibernate3, it is no longer necessary to
specify an unsaved-value explicitly.
The following code will update parent and child and insert newChild.
//parent and child were both loaded in a previous session

parent.addChild(child);
Child newChild = new Child();
parent.addChild(newChild);
session.update(parent);
session.flush();
Well, that's all very well for the case of a generated identifier, but what about assigned identifiers and compos-
ite identifiers? This is more difficult, since Hibernate can't use the identifier property to distinguish between a
newly instantiated object (with an identifier assigned by the user) and an object loaded in a previous session. In
this case, Hibernate will either use the timestamp or version property, or will actually query the second-level
cache or, worst case, the database, to see if the row exists.
21.5. Conclusion
There is quite a bit to digest here and it might look confusing first time around. However, in practice, it all
works out very nicely. Most Hibernate applications use the parent / child pattern in many places.
We mentioned an alternative in the first paragraph. None of the above issues exist in the case of
<composite-element> mappings, which have exactly the semantics of a parent / child relationship. Unfortu-
nately, there are two big limitations to composite element classes: composite elements may not own collections,
and they should not be the child of any entity other than the unique parent.
Hibernate 3.1.1 197

Chapter 22. Example: Weblog Application
22.1. Persistent Classes

The persistent classes represent a weblog, and an item posted in a weblog. They are to be modelled as a stand-
ard parent/child relationship, but we will use an ordered bag, instead of a set.
package eg;
import java.util.List;
public class Blog {

private Long _id;
private String _name;
private List _items;

return _id;
}
public List getItems() {
return _items;
}
public String getName() {
return _name;
}
public void setId(Long long1) {
_id = long1;
}
public void setItems(List list) {
_items = list;
}
public void setName(String string) {
_name = string;
}
}
package eg;
import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.util.Calendar;
public class BlogItem {

private Long _id;
private Calendar _datetime;
private String _text;
private String _title;
private Blog _blog;
public Blog getBlog() {

return _blog;
}
public Calendar getDatetime() {
return _datetime;
}
return _id;
}
public String getText() {
return _text;
}
public String getTitle() {
return _title;
}
public void setBlog(Blog blog) {
_blog = blog;
Hibernate 3.1.1 198

Example: Weblog Application
}
public void setDatetime(Calendar calendar) {
_datetime = calendar;
}
public void setId(Long long1) {
_id = long1;
}
public void setText(String string) {
_text = string;
}
public void setTitle(String string) {
_title = string;
}
}
22.2. Hibernate Mappings

The XML mappings should now be quite straightforward.
<class
name="Blog"
table="BLOGS">
<id
name="id"
column="BLOG_ID">
</id>
<property
name="name"
column="NAME"
not-null="true"
unique="true"/>
<bag
name="items"
inverse="true"
order-by="DATE_TIME"
cascade="all">
<key column="BLOG_ID"/>
<one-to-many class="BlogItem"/>
</bag>
</class>
Hibernate 3.1.1 199

<class
name="BlogItem"
table="BLOG_ITEMS"
dynamic-update="true">
<id
name="id"
column="BLOG_ITEM_ID">
</id>
<property
name="title"
column="TITLE"
not-null="true"/>
<property
name="text"
column="TEXT"
not-null="true"/>
<property
name="datetime"
column="DATE_TIME"
not-null="true"/>
<many-to-one
name="blog"
column="BLOG_ID"
not-null="true"/>
</class>
22.3. Hibernate Code

The following class demonstrates some of the kinds of things we can do with these classes, using Hibernate.
package eg;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;
import org.hibernate.HibernateException;
import org.hibernate.Query;
import org.hibernate.Session;
import org.hibernate.SessionFactory;
import org.hibernate.Transaction;
import org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration;
import org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaExport;
public class BlogMain {
private SessionFactory _sessions;
public void configure() throws HibernateException {

_sessions = new Configuration()
.addClass(Blog.class)
.addClass(BlogItem.class)
}
Hibernate 3.1.1 200

public void exportTables() throws HibernateException {

.addClass(Blog.class)
.addClass(BlogItem.class);
new SchemaExport(cfg).create(true, true);
}
public Blog createBlog(String name) throws HibernateException {
Blog blog = new Blog();

blog.setName(name);
blog.setItems( new ArrayList() );
Session session = _sessions.openSession();

try {
tx = session.beginTransaction();
session.persist(blog);
tx.commit();
}
catch (HibernateException he) {
if (tx!=null) tx.rollback();
throw he;
}
finally {
session.close();
}
return blog;
}
public BlogItem createBlogItem(Blog blog, String title, String text)

BlogItem item = new BlogItem();

item.setTitle(title);
item.setText(text);
item.setBlog(blog);
item.setDatetime( Calendar.getInstance() );
blog.getItems().add(item);

try {
session.update(blog);
tx.commit();
}
throw he;
}
finally {
session.close();
}
return item;
}
public BlogItem createBlogItem(Long blogid, String title, String text)

BlogItem item = new BlogItem();

item.setTitle(title);
item.setText(text);
item.setDatetime( Calendar.getInstance() );

try {
Blog blog = (Blog) session.load(Blog.class, blogid);
item.setBlog(blog);
Hibernate 3.1.1 201

blog.getItems().add(item);
tx.commit();
}
throw he;
}
finally {
session.close();
}
return item;
}
public void updateBlogItem(BlogItem item, String text)

item.setText(text);

try {
session.update(item);
tx.commit();
}
throw he;
}
finally {
session.close();
}
}
public void updateBlogItem(Long itemid, String text)


try {
BlogItem item = (BlogItem) session.load(BlogItem.class, itemid);
item.setText(text);
tx.commit();
}
throw he;
}
finally {
session.close();
}
}
public List listAllBlogNamesAndItemCounts(int max)


List result = null;
try {
Query q = session.createQuery(
"select blog.id, blog.name, count(blogItem) " +
"from Blog as blog " +
"left outer join blog.items as blogItem " +
"group by blog.name, blog.id " +
"order by max(blogItem.datetime)"
);
q.setMaxResults(max);
result = q.list();
Hibernate 3.1.1 202

tx.commit();
}
throw he;
}
finally {
session.close();
}
return result;
}
public Blog getBlogAndAllItems(Long blogid)


Blog blog = null;
try {
"left outer join fetch blog.items " +
"where blog.id = :blogid"
);
q.setParameter("blogid", blogid);
blog = (Blog) q.uniqueResult();
tx.commit();
}
throw he;
}
finally {
session.close();
}
return blog;
}
public List listBlogsAndRecentItems() throws HibernateException {

List result = null;
try {
"inner join blog.items as blogItem " +
"where blogItem.datetime > :minDate"
);
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();

cal.roll(Calendar.MONTH, false);
q.setCalendar("minDate", cal);
result = q.list();
tx.commit();
}
throw he;
}
finally {
session.close();
}
return result;
}
}
Hibernate 3.1.1 203

Chapter 23. Example: Various Mappings
This chapters shows off some more complex association mappings.
23.1. Employer/Employee
The following model of the relationship between Employer and Employee uses an actual entity class (Employ-
ment) to represent the association. This is done because there might be more than one period of employment for
the same two parties. Components are used to model monetary values and employee names.
Heres a possible mapping document:
<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="Employer" table="employers">

<id name="id">
<param name="sequence">employer_id_seq</param>
</generator>
</id>
</class>
<class name="Employment" table="employment_periods">
<id name="id">
<param name="sequence">employment_id_seq</param>
</generator>
</id>
<property name="startDate" column="start_date"/>
<property name="endDate" column="end_date"/>
<component name="hourlyRate" class="MonetaryAmount">

<property name="amount">
<column name="hourly_rate" sql-type="NUMERIC(12, 2)"/>
</property>
<property name="currency" length="12"/>
</component>
<many-to-one name="employer" column="employer_id" not-null="true"/>

<many-to-one name="employee" column="employee_id" not-null="true"/>
</class>
<class name="Employee" table="employees">

<id name="id">
Hibernate 3.1.1 204

Example: Various Mappings
<param name="sequence">employee_id_seq</param>
</generator>
</id>
<property name="taxfileNumber"/>
<component name="name" class="Name">
<property name="firstName"/>
<property name="lastName"/>
</component>
</class>
And heres the table schema generated by SchemaExport.
create table employers (

id BIGINT not null,
name VARCHAR(255),
primary key (id)
)
create table employment_periods (

id BIGINT not null,
hourly_rate NUMERIC(12, 2),
currency VARCHAR(12),
employee_id BIGINT not null,
employer_id BIGINT not null,
end_date TIMESTAMP,
start_date TIMESTAMP,
primary key (id)
)
create table employees (

id BIGINT not null,
firstName VARCHAR(255),
initial CHAR(1),
lastName VARCHAR(255),
taxfileNumber VARCHAR(255),
primary key (id)
)
alter table employment_periods

add constraint employment_periodsFK0 foreign key (employer_id) references employers
alter table employment_periods
add constraint employment_periodsFK1 foreign key (employee_id) references employees
create sequence employee_id_seq
create sequence employment_id_seq
create sequence employer_id_seq
23.2. Author/Work
Consider the following model of the relationships between Work, Author and Person. We represent the relation-
ship between Work and Author as a many-to-many association. We choose to represent the relationship between
Author and Person as one-to-one association. Another possibility would be to have Author extend Person.
Hibernate 3.1.1 205

The following mapping document correctly represents these relationships:
<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="Work" table="works" discriminator-value="W">
<id name="id" column="id">

</id>
<discriminator column="type" type="character"/>
<property name="title"/>
<set name="authors" table="author_work">
<key column name="work_id"/>
<many-to-many class="Author" column name="author_id"/>
</set>
<subclass name="Book" discriminator-value="B">

<property name="text"/>
</subclass>
<subclass name="Song" discriminator-value="S">

<property name="tempo"/>
<property name="genre"/>
</subclass>
</class>
<class name="Author" table="authors">


<generator class="assigned"/>
</id>
<property name="alias"/>
<one-to-one name="person" constrained="true"/>
<set name="works" table="author_work" inverse="true">

<key column="author_id"/>
<many-to-many class="Work" column="work_id"/>
</set>
</class>
Hibernate 3.1.1 206

<class name="Person" table="persons">

</id>
</class>
There are four tables in this mapping. works, authors and persons hold work, author and person data respect-
ively. author_work is an association table linking authors to works. Heres the table schema, as generated by
SchemaExport.
create table works (

id BIGINT not null generated by default as identity,
tempo FLOAT,
genre VARCHAR(255),
text INTEGER,
title VARCHAR(255),
type CHAR(1) not null,
primary key (id)
)
create table author_work (

author_id BIGINT not null,
work_id BIGINT not null,
primary key (work_id, author_id)
)
create table authors (

alias VARCHAR(255),
primary key (id)
)
create table persons (

name VARCHAR(255),
primary key (id)
)
alter table authors

add constraint authorsFK0 foreign key (id) references persons
alter table author_work
add constraint author_workFK0 foreign key (author_id) references authors
alter table author_work
add constraint author_workFK1 foreign key (work_id) references works
23.3. Customer/Order/Product
Now consider a model of the relationships between Customer, Order and LineItem and Product. There is a
one-to-many association between Customer and Order, but how should we represent Order / LineItem /
Product? I've chosen to map LineItem as an association class representing the many-to-many association
between Order and Product. In Hibernate, this is called a composite element.
Hibernate 3.1.1 207

The mapping document:
<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="Customer" table="customers">

<id name="id">
</id>
<set name="orders" inverse="true">
<key column="customer_id"/>
</set>
</class>
<class name="Order" table="orders">

<id name="id">
</id>
<property name="date"/>
<many-to-one name="customer" column="customer_id"/>
<list name="lineItems" table="line_items">
<key column="order_id"/>
<list-index column="line_number"/>
<composite-element class="LineItem">
<many-to-one name="product" column="product_id"/>
</list>
</class>
<class name="Product" table="products">

<id name="id">
</id>
<property name="serialNumber"/>
</class>
customers, orders, line_items and products hold customer, order, order line item and product data respect-
ively. line_items also acts as an association table linking orders with products.
create table customers (

name VARCHAR(255),
primary key (id)
)
create table orders (

customer_id BIGINT,
date TIMESTAMP,
primary key (id)
)
create table line_items (

line_number INTEGER not null,
Hibernate 3.1.1 208

order_id BIGINT not null,

product_id BIGINT,
quantity INTEGER,
primary key (order_id, line_number)
)
create table products (

serialNumber VARCHAR(255),
primary key (id)
)
alter table orders

add constraint ordersFK0 foreign key (customer_id) references customers
alter table line_items
add constraint line_itemsFK0 foreign key (product_id) references products
alter table line_items
add constraint line_itemsFK1 foreign key (order_id) references orders
23.4. Miscellaneous example mappings

These examples are all taken from the Hibernate test suite. You will find many other useful example mappings
there. Look in the test folder of the Hibernate distribution.
TODO: put words around this stuff
23.4.1. "Typed" one-to-one association
<id name="name"/>
<one-to-one name="address"
cascade="all">
<formula>name</formula>
<formula>'HOME'</formula>
</one-to-one>
<one-to-one name="mailingAddress"
cascade="all">
<formula>name</formula>
<formula>'MAILING'</formula>
</one-to-one>
</class>
<class name="Address" batch-size="2"

check="addressType in ('MAILING', 'HOME', 'BUSINESS')">
<composite-id>
<key-many-to-one name="person"
column="personName"/>
<key-property name="type"
column="addressType"/>
</composite-id>
<property name="street" type="text"/>
<property name="state"/>
</class>
23.4.2. Composite key example
<class name="Customer">
<id name="customerId"
length="10">
Hibernate 3.1.1 209

</id>
<property name="name" not-null="true" length="100"/>

<property name="address" not-null="true" length="200"/>
<list name="orders"
inverse="true"
cascade="save-update">
<key column="customerId"/>
<index column="orderNumber"/>
</list>
</class>
<class name="Order" table="CustomerOrder" lazy="true">

<synchronize table="LineItem"/>
<synchronize table="Product"/>
<composite-id name="id"
class="Order$Id">
<key-property name="customerId" length="10"/>
<key-property name="orderNumber"/>
</composite-id>
<property name="orderDate"
type="calendar_date"
not-null="true"/>
<property name="total">
<formula>
( select sum(li.quantity*p.price)
from LineItem li, Product p
where li.productId = p.productId
and li.customerId = customerId
and li.orderNumber = orderNumber )
</formula>
</property>
<many-to-one name="customer"
column="customerId"
insert="false"
update="false"
not-null="true"/>
<bag name="lineItems"
fetch="join"
inverse="true"
cascade="save-update">
<key>
<column name="orderNumber"/>
</key>
<one-to-many class="LineItem"/>
</bag>
</class>
<class name="LineItem">
<composite-id name="id"
class="LineItem$Id">
<key-property name="customerId" length="10"/>
<key-property name="orderNumber"/>
<key-property name="productId" length="10"/>
</composite-id>
<many-to-one name="order"
insert="false"
Hibernate 3.1.1 210

update="false"
not-null="true">
<column name="orderNumber"/>
</many-to-one>
<many-to-one name="product"
insert="false"
update="false"
not-null="true"
column="productId"/>
</class>
<class name="Product">
<synchronize table="LineItem"/>
<id name="productId"
length="10">
</id>
<property name="description"
not-null="true"
length="200"/>
<property name="price" length="3"/>
<property name="numberAvailable"/>
<property name="numberOrdered">
<formula>
( select sum(li.quantity)
from LineItem li
where li.productId = productId )
</formula>
</property>
</class>
23.4.3. Many-to-many with shared composite key attribute
<class name="User" table="Ùser`">

<composite-id>
<key-property name="name"/>
<key-property name="org"/>
</composite-id>
<set name="groups" table="UserGroup">
<key>
<column name="userName"/>
<column name="org"/>
</key>
<many-to-many class="Group">
<column name="groupName"/>
<formula>org</formula>
</many-to-many>
</set>
</class>
<class name="Group" table="`Group`">

<composite-id>
<key-property name="name"/>
<key-property name="org"/>
</composite-id>
<property name="description"/>
<set name="users" table="UserGroup" inverse="true">
<key>
<column name="groupName"/>
<column name="org"/>
</key>
Hibernate 3.1.1 211

<many-to-many class="User">
<column name="userName"/>
<formula>org</formula>
</many-to-many>
</set>
</class>
23.4.4. Content based discrimination
<class name="Person"
discriminator-value="P">
<id name="id"
column="person_id"
unsaved-value="0">
</id>
<discriminator
type="character">
<formula>
case
when title is not null then 'E'
when salesperson is not null then 'C'
else 'P'
end
</formula>
</discriminator>
not-null="true"
length="80"/>
<property name="sex"
not-null="true"
update="false"/>
<component name="address">
<property name="address"/>
<property name="country"/>
</component>
<subclass name="Employee"
discriminator-value="E">
<property name="title"
length="20"/>
<property name="salary"/>
<many-to-one name="manager"/>
</subclass>
<subclass name="Customer"
discriminator-value="C">
<property name="comments"/>
<many-to-one name="salesperson"/>
</subclass>
</class>
23.4.5. Associations on alternate keys
<id name="id">
Hibernate 3.1.1 212

</id>
<property name="name" length="100"/>
<one-to-one name="address"
property-ref="person"
cascade="all"
fetch="join"/>
<set name="accounts"
inverse="true">
<key column="userId"
property-ref="userId"/>
<one-to-many class="Account"/>
</set>
<property name="userId" length="8"/>
</class>
<id name="id">
</id>
<property name="address" length="300"/>

<property name="zip" length="5"/>
<property name="country" length="25"/>
<many-to-one name="person" unique="true" not-null="true"/>
</class>
<class name="Account">
<id name="accountId" length="32">
</id>
<many-to-one name="user"
column="userId"
property-ref="userId"/>
<property name="type" not-null="true"/>
</class>
Hibernate 3.1.1 213

Chapter 24. Best Practices
Write fine-grained classes and map them using <component>.
Use an Address class to encapsulate street, suburb, state, postcode. This encourages code reuse and
simplifies refactoring.
Declare identifier properties on persistent classes.

Hibernate makes identifier properties optional. There are all sorts of reasons why you should use them. We
recommend that identifiers be 'synthetic' (generated, with no business meaning).
Identify natural keys.

Identify natural keys for all entities, and map them using <natural-id>. Implement equals() and hash-
Code() to compare the properties that make up the natural key.
Place each class mapping in its own file.

Don't use a single monolithic mapping document. Map com.eg.Foo in the file com/eg/Foo.hbm.xml. This
makes particularly good sense in a team environment.
Load mappings as resources.

Deploy the mappings along with the classes they map.
Consider externalising query strings.

This is a good practice if your queries call non-ANSI-standard SQL functions. Externalising the query
strings to mapping files will make the application more portable.
Use bind variables.

As in JDBC, always replace non-constant values by "?". Never use string manipulation to bind a non-
constant value in a query! Even better, consider using named parameters in queries.
Don't manage your own JDBC connections.

Hibernate lets the application manage JDBC connections. This approach should be considered a last-resort.
If you can't use the built-in connections providers, consider providing your own implementation of
org.hibernate.connection.ConnectionProvider.
Consider using a custom type.

Suppose you have a Java type, say from some library, that needs to be persisted but doesn't provide the ac-
cessors needed to map it as a component. You should consider implementing org.hibernate.UserType.
This approach frees the application code from implementing transformations to / from a Hibernate type.
Use hand-coded JDBC in bottlenecks.

In performance-critical areas of the system, some kinds of operations might benefit from direct JDBC. But
please, wait until you know something is a bottleneck. And don't assume that direct JDBC is necessarily
faster. If you need to use direct JDBC, it might be worth opening a Hibernate Session and using that JDBC
connection. That way you can still use the same transaction strategy and underlying connection provider.
Understand Session flushing.

From time to time the Session synchronizes its persistent state with the database. Performance will be af-
fected if this process occurs too often. You may sometimes minimize unnecessary flushing by disabling
automatic flushing or even by changing the order of queries and other operations within a particular trans-
action.
In a three tiered architecture, consider using detached objects.

When using a servlet / session bean architecture, you could pass persistent objects loaded in the session
Hibernate 3.1.1 214

Best Practices
bean to and from the servlet / JSP layer. Use a new session to service each request. Use Session.merge()
or Session.saveOrUpdate() to synchronize objects with the database.
In a two tiered architecture, consider using long persistence contexts.

Database Transactions have to be as short as possible for best scalability. However, it is often neccessary to
implement long running application transactions, a single unit-of-work from the point of view of a user.
An application transaction might span several client request/response cycles. It is common to use detached
objects to implement application transactions. An alternative, extremely appropriate in two tiered architec-
ture, is to maintain a single open persistence contact (session) for the whole lifecycle of the application
transaction and simply disconnect from the JDBC connection at the end of each request and reconnect at
the beginning of the subsequent request. Never share a single session across more than one application
transaction, or you will be working with stale data.
Don't treat exceptions as recoverable.

This is more of a necessary practice than a "best" practice. When an exception occurs, roll back the Trans-
action and close the Session. If you don't, Hibernate can't guarantee that in-memory state accurately rep-
resents persistent state. As a special case of this, do not use Session.load() to determine if an instance
with the given identifier exists on the database; use Session.get() or a query instead.
Prefer lazy fetching for associations.

Use eager fetching sparingly. Use proxies and lazy collections for most associations to classes that are not
likely to be completely held in the second-level cache. For associations to cached classes, where there is an
a extremely high probability of a cache hit, explicitly disable eager fetching using lazy="false". When an
join fetching is appropriate to a particular use case, use a query with a left join fetch.
Use the open session in view pattern, or a disciplined assembly phase to avoid problems with unfetched data.
Hibernate frees the developer from writing tedious Data Transfer Objects (DTO). In a traditional EJB ar-
chitecture, DTOs serve dual purposes: first, they work around the problem that entity beans are not serializ-
able; second, they implicitly define an assembly phase where all data to be used by the view is fetched and
marshalled into the DTOs before returning control to the presentation tier. Hibernate eliminates the first
purpose. However, you will still need an assembly phase (think of your business methods as having a strict
contract with the presentation tier about what data is available in the detached objects) unless you are pre-
pared to hold the persistence context (the session) open across the view rendering process. This is not a lim-
itation of Hibernate! It is a fundamental requirement of safe transactional data access.
Consider abstracting your business logic from Hibernate.

Hide (Hibernate) data-access code behind an interface. Combine the DAO and Thread Local Session pat-
terns. You can even have some classes persisted by handcoded JDBC, associated to Hibernate via a User-
Type. (This advice is intended for "sufficiently large" applications; it is not appropriate for an application
with five tables!)
Don't use exotic association mappings.

Good usecases for a real many-to-many associations are rare. Most of the time you need additional inform-
ation stored in the "link table". In this case, it is much better to use two one-to-many associations to an in-
termediate link class. In fact, we think that most associations are one-to-many and many-to-one, you should
be careful when using any other association style and ask yourself if it is really neccessary.
Prefer bidirectional associations.

Unidirectional associations are more difficult to query. In a large application, almost all associations must
be navigable in both directions in queries.
Hibernate 3.1.1 215

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4.1. A simple POJO example ................................................................................................... 40

Hibernate 3.1.1 iii

6.2. Collection mappings ......................................................................................................... 77

10.4. Querying ..................................................................................................................... 111

14.5. The select clause .......................................................................................................... 144

19.2.5. Strategy: transactional ........................................................................................ 182

Hibernate 3.1.1 vii

5. FAQs are answered on the Hibernate website.

Hibernate 3.1.1 viii

1.2. Part 1 - The first Hibernate Application

1.2.1. The first class

public class Event {

private Long id;

private String title;

public Long getId() {

private void setId(Long id) {

public Date getDate() {

public void setDate(Date date) {

public String getTitle() {

public void setTitle(String title) {

In the next step, we tell Hibernate about this persistent class.

1.2.2. The mapping file

The basic structure of a mapping file looks like this:

<class name="events.Event" table="EVENTS">

<class name="events.Event" table="EVENTS">

<class name="events.Event" table="EVENTS">

We continue with the main configuration of Hibernate.

1.2.3. Hibernate configuration

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>

1.2.4. Building with Ant

A basic build file looks like this:

<project name="hibernate-tutorial" default="compile">

<property name="sourcedir" value="${basedir}/src"/>

<target name="compile" depends="clean, copy-resources">

1.2.5. Startup and helpers

public class HibernateUtil {

private static final SessionFactory sessionFactory;

public static SessionFactory getSessionFactory() {

Place HibernateUtil.java in the development source directory, in a package next to events:

1.2.6. Loading and storing objects

public class EventManager {

public static void main(String[] args) {

private void createAndStoreEvent(String title, Date theDate) {

Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().getCurrentSession();

Event theEvent = new Event();

<target name="run" depends="compile">

C:\hibernateTutorial\>ant run -Daction=store

We also add a new listEvents() method:

private List listEvents() {

Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().getCurrentSession();

List result = session.createQuery("from Event").list();

Now, to execute and test all of this, follow these steps: