Hibernate Annotations

Reference Guide

Version: 3.1 beta 9

Table of Contents
Preface ............................................................................................................................................ iv
1. Setting up an annotations project ................................................................................................ 1
1.1. Requirements ..................................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Configuration ..................................................................................................................... 1
2. Entity Beans ................................................................................................................................ 3
2.1. Intro .................................................................................................................................. 3
2.2. Mapping with EJB3 Annotations ......................................................................................... 3
2.2.1. Declaring an entity bean .......................................................................................... 3
2.2.1.1. Defining the table ......................................................................................... 3
2.2.1.2. Versioning for optimistic locking ................................................................... 4
2.2.2. Mapping simple properties ....................................................................................... 4
2.2.2.1. Declaring basic property mappings ................................................................ 4
2.2.2.2. Declaring column attributes ........................................................................... 5
2.2.2.3. Embedded objects (aka components) .............................................................. 6
2.2.2.4. Non-annotated property defaults .................................................................... 8
2.2.. Mapping identifier properties ..................................................................................... 8
2.2.4. Mapping inheritance .............................................................................................. 11
2.2.4.1. Table per class ............................................................................................ 11
2.2.4.2. Single table per class hierarchy .................................................................... 11
2.2.4.3. Joined subclasses ........................................................................................ 12
2.2.4.4. Inherit properties from superclasses ............................................................. 12
2.2.5. Mapping entity bean associations/relationships ........................................................ 14
2.2.5.1. One-to-one ................................................................................................. 14
2.2.5.2. Many-to-one ............................................................................................... 15
2.2.5.3. Collections ................................................................................................. 15
2.2.5.4. Transitive persistence with cascading ........................................................... 21
2.2.5.5. Association fetching ................................................................................... 21
2.2.6. Mapping composite primary and foreign keys ......................................................... 21
2.2.7. Mapping secondary tables ...................................................................................... 23
2.3. Mapping Queries .............................................................................................................. 23
2.3.1. Mapping EJBQL/HQL queries ............................................................................... 23
2.3.2. Mapping native queries .......................................................................................... 24
2.4. Hibernate Annotation Extensions ...................................................................................... 27
2.4.1. Entity ................................................................................................................... 28
2.4.2. Identifier ............................................................................................................... 29
2.4.3. Property ................................................................................................................ 29
2.4.3.1. Access type ................................................................................................ 29
2.4.3.2. Formula ..................................................................................................... 31
2.4.3.3. Type .......................................................................................................... 31
2.4.3.4. Index ......................................................................................................... 32
2.4.4. Inheritance ............................................................................................................ 32
2.4.5. Single Association related annotations .................................................................... 32
2.4.6. Collection related annotations ................................................................................ 32
2.4.6.1. Parameter annotations ................................................................................. 32
2.4.6.2. Extra collection types .................................................................................. 33
2.4.7. Cache ................................................................................................................... 35
2.4.8. Filters ................................................................................................................... 35
2.4.9. Queries ................................................................................................................. 36

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 Hibernate Annotations

3. Hibernate Validator .................................................................................................................. 37

3.1. Constraints ...................................................................................................................... 37
3.1.1. What is a constraint? .............................................................................................. 37
3.1.2. Built in constraints ................................................................................................. 37
3.1.3. Error messages ...................................................................................................... 38
3.1.4. Writing your own constraints ................................................................................. 39
3.1.5. Annotating your domain model .............................................................................. 40
3.2. Using the Validator framework ......................................................................................... 41
3.2.1. Database schema-level validation ........................................................................... 41
3.2.2. Hibernate event-based validation ............................................................................ 42
3.2.3. Application-level validation ................................................................................... 42
3.2.4. Validation informations ......................................................................................... 42
4. Hibernate Lucene Integration ................................................................................................... 44
4.1. Using Lucene to index your entities ................................................................................... 44
4.1.1. Annotating your domain model .............................................................................. 44
4.1.2. Enabling automatic indexing .................................................................................. 44

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 iii

Preface
Hibernate, like all other object/relational mapping tools, requires metadata that governs the transformation of
data from one representation to the other (and vice versa). In Hibernate 2.x, mapping metadata is most of the
time declared in XML text files. Another option is XDoclet, utilizing Javadoc source code annotations and a
preprocessor at compile time. The same kind of annotation support is now available in the standard JDK, al-
though more powerful and better supported by tools. IntelliJ IDEA, and Eclipse for example, support auto-
completion and syntax highlighting of JDK 5.0 annotations. Annotations are compiled into the bytecode and
read at runtime (in Hibernate's case on startup) using reflection, so no external XML files are needed.

The EJB3 specification recognizes the interest and the success of the transparent object/relational mapping
paradigm. The EJB3 specification standardizes the basic APIs and the metadata needed for any object/relational
persistence mechanism. Hibernate EntityManager implements the programming interfaces and lifecycle rules
as defined by the EJB3 persistence specification. Together with Hibernate Annotations, this wrapper imple-
ments a complete (and standalone) EJB3 persistence solution on top of the mature Hibernate core. You may use
a combination of all three together, annotations without EJB3 programming interfaces and lifecycle, or even
pure native Hibernate, depending on the business and technical needs of your project. You can at all times fall
back to Hibernate native APIs, or if required, even to native JDBC and SQL.

Please note that this documentation is based on a preview release of the Hibernate Annotations that follows the
public final draft of EJB 3.0/JSR-220 persistence annotations. This work is already very close to the final con-
cepts in the new specification. Our goal is to provide a complete set of ORM annotations, including EJB3
standard annotations as well as Hibernate3 extensions for cases not covered by the specification. Eventually
you will be able to create all possible mappings with annotations. See the JIRA road mapsection for more in-
formation.

The EJB3 Public final draft has change some annotations, please refer to http://www.hibernate.org/371.html as
a migration guide between Hibernate Annotations 3.1beta7 and 3.1beta8.

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 iv

Chapter 1. Setting up an annotations project

1.1. Requirements

• Download and unpack the Hibernate Annotations distribution from the Hibernate website.

• This preview release requires Hibernate 3.2.0.CR2 and above. Do not use this release of Hibernate Annota-
tions with an older version of Hibernate 3.x!

• This release is known to work on Hibernate core 3.2.0.CR2

• Make sure you have JDK 5.0 installed. You can of course continue using XDoclet and get some of the be-
nefits of annotation-based metadata with older JDK versions. Note that this document only describes JDK
5.0 annotations and you have to refer to the XDoclet documentation for more information.

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

• Copy all Hibernate3 core and required 3rd party library files (see lib/README.txt in Hibernate).

• Copy hibernate-annotations.jar and lib/ejb3-persistence.jar from the Hibernate Annotations dis-

tribution to your classpath as well.

• To use the Chapter 4, Hibernate Lucene Integration, add the lucene jar file.

We also recommend a small wrapper class to startup Hibernate in a static initializer block, known as Hibern-
ateUtil. You might have seen this class in various forms in other areas of the Hibernate documentation. For
Annotation support you have to enhance this helper class as follows:

package hello;

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

public class HibernateUtil {

private static final SessionFactory sessionFactory;

static {
try {

sessionFactory = new AnnotationConfiguration().buildSessionFactory();

} catch (Throwable ex) {
// Log exception!
throw new ExceptionInInitializerError(ex);
}
}

public static Session getSession()

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

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 Setting up an annotations project

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

<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC

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

<hibernate-configuration>
<session-factory>
<mapping package="test.animals"/>
<mapping class="test.Flight"/>
<mapping class="test.Sky"/>
<mapping class="test.Person"/>
<mapping class="test.animals.Dog"/>
</session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>

Note that you can mix the hbm.xml use and the new annotation one.

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

sessionFactory = new AnnotationConfiguration()

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

You can also use the Hibernate Entity Manager which has it's own configuration mechanism. Please refer to
this project documentation for more details.

There is no other difference in the way you use Hibernate APIs with annotations, except for this startup routine
change or in the configuration file. You can use your favorite configuration method for other properties ( hi-
bernate.properties, hibernate.cfg.xml, programmatic APIs, etc). You can even mix annotated persistent
classes and classic hbm.cfg.xml declarations with the same SessionFactory. You can however not declare a
class several times (whether annotated or through hbm.xml). You cannot mix configuration strategies (hbm vs
annotations) in a mapped entity hierarchy either.

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

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Chapter 2. Entity Beans

2.1. Intro
This section covers EJB 3.0 entity bean annotations and Hibernate-specific extensions.

2.2. Mapping with EJB3 Annotations

EJB3 entity beans are plain POJOs. Actually they represent the exact same concept as the Hibernate persistent
entities. Their mappings are defined through JDK 5.0 annotations (an XML descriptor syntax for overriding
will be defined in the EJB3 specification, but it's not finalized so far). Annotations can be split in two categor-
ies, the logical mapping annotations (allowing you to describe the object model, the class associations, etc.) and
the physical mapping annotations (describing the physical schema, tables, columns, indexes, etc). We will mix
annotations from both categories in the following code examples.

EJB3 annotations are in the javax.persistence.* package. Most JDK 5 compliant IDE (like Eclipse, IntelliJ
IDEA and Netbeans) can autocomplete annotation interfaces and attributes for you (even without a specific
"EJB3" module, since EJB3 annotations are plain JDK 5 annotations).

For more and runnable concrete examples read the JBoss EJB 3.0 tutorial or review the Hibernate Annotations
test suite. Most of the unit tests have been designed to represent a concrete example and be a inspiration source.

2.2.1. Declaring an entity bean

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

@Entity
public class Flight implements Serializable {
Long id;

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

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

}

@Entity declares the class as an entity bean (i.e. a persistent POJO class), @Id declares the identifier property of
this entity bean. The other mapping declarations are implicit. This configuration by exception concept is central
to the new EJB3 specification and a major improvement. The class Flight is mapped to the Flight table, using
the column id as its primary key column.

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

Defining the table

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 Entity Beans

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

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

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

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

A unique constraint is applied to the tuple month, day. Note that the columnNames array refers to the logical
column names.
The logical column name is defined by the Hibernate NamingStrategy implementation. The default EJB3 nam-
ing strategy use the physical column name as the logical column name. Note that this may be different than the
property name (if the column name is explicit). Unless you override the NamingStrategy, you shouldn't worry
about that.

Versioning for optimistic locking

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

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

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

The version column may be a numeric (the recommended solution) or a timestamp as per the EJB3 spec. Hi-
bernate support any kind of type provided that you define and implement the appropriate UserVersionType.

2.2.2. Mapping simple properties

Declaring basic property mappings

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

public transient int counter; //transient property

private String firstname; //persistent property

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

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 Entity Beans

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note
To enable property level lazy fetching, your classes have to be instrumented: bytecode is added to the
original one to enable such feature, please refer to the Hibernate reference documentation. If your
classes are not instrumented, property level lazy loading is silently ignored.

The recommended alternative is to use the projection capability of EJB-QL or Criteria queries.

EJB3 support property mapping of all basic types supported by Hibernate (all basic Java types , their respective
wrappers and serializable classes). Hibernate Annotations support out of the box Enum type mapping either in-
to a ordinal column (saving the enum ordinal) or a string based column (saving the enum string representation):
the persistence representation, defaulted to ordinal, can be overriden through the @Enumerated annotation as
shown in the note property example.

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

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

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

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

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

Declaring column attributes

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 Entity Beans

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

• not annotated at all

• annotated with @Basic

• annotated with @Version

• annotated with @Lob

• annotated with @Temporal

• annotated with @org.hibernate.annotations.CollectionOfElements (for Hibernate only)

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

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

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

@Column(
name="columnName"; (1)
boolean unique() default false; (2)
boolean nullable() default true; (3)
boolean insertable() default true; (4)
boolean updatable() default true; (5)
String columnDefinition() default ""; (6)
String table() default ""; (7)
int length() default 255; (8)
int precision() default 0; // decimal precision (9)
int scale() default 0; // decimal scale

(1) name (optional): the column name (default to the property name)
(2) unique (optional): set a unique constraint on this column or not (default false)
(3) nullable (optional): set the column as nullable (default false).
(4) insertable (optional): whether or not the column will be part of the insert statement (default true)
(5) updatable (optional): whether or not the column will be part of the update statement (default true)
(6) columnDefinition (optional): override the sql DDL fragment for this particular column (non portable)
(7) table (optional): define the targeted table (default primary table)
(8) length (optional): column length (default 255)

(8) precision (optional): column decimal precision (default 0)

(10) scale (optional): column decimal scale if useful (default 0)

Embedded objects (aka components)

It is possible to declare an embedded component inside an entity and even override its column mapping. Com-
ponent classes have to be annotated at the class level with the @Embeddable annotation. It is possible to override
the column mapping of an embedded object for a particular entity using the @Embedded and

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 Entity Beans

@AttributeOverride annotation in the associated property:

@Entity
public class Person implements Serializable {

// Persistent component using defaults

Address homeAddress;

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

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

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

public String getIso2() { return iso2; }

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

public String getName() { return name; }

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

A embeddable object inherit the access type of its owning entity (note that you can override that using the Hi-
bernate specific @AccessType annotations (see Hibernate Annotation Extensions).

The Person entity bean has two component properties, homeAddress and bornIn. homeAddress property has not
been annotated, but Hibernate will guess that it is a persistent component by looking for the @Embeddable an-
notation in the Address class. We also override the mapping of a column name (to bornCountryName) with the
@Embedded and @AttributeOverride annotations for each mapped attribute of Country. As you can see, Coun-
try is also a nested component of Address, again using auto-detection by Hibernate and EJB3 defaults. Over-
riding columns of embedded objects of embedded objects is currently not supported in the EJB3 spec, however,
Hibernate Annotations supports it through dotted expressions.

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

Hibernate Annotations supports one more feature that is not explicitly supported by the EJB3 specification.

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 Entity Beans

You can annotate a embedded object with the @MappedSuperclass annotation to make the superclass properties
persistent (see @MappedSuperclass for more informations).

While not supported by the EJB3 specification, Hibernate Annotations allows you to use association annota-
tions in an embeddable object (ie @*ToOne nor @*ToMany). To override the association columns you can use
@AssociationOverride.

If you want to have the same embeddable object type twice in the same entity, the column name defaulting will
not work: at least one of the columns will have to be explicit. Hibernate goes beyond the EJB3 spec and allows
you to enhance the defaulting mechanism through the NamingStrategy. DefaultComponentSafeNaming-
Strategy is a small improvement over the default EJB3NamingStrategy that allows embedded objects to be de-
faulted even if used twice in the same entity.

Non-annotated property defaults

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

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

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

• Otherwise, if the type of the property is Serializable, it is mapped as @Basic in a column holding the object
in its serialized version

• Otherwise, if the type of the property is java.sql.Clob or java.sql.Blob, it is mapped as @Lob with the ap-
propriate LobType

2.2.. Mapping identifier properties

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

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

• TABLE - table holding the id

• IDENTITY - identity column

• SEQUENCE - sequence

Hibernate provides more id generators than the basic EJB3 ones. Check Hibernate Annotation Extensions for
more informations.

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

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

public Integer getId() { ... }

The next example uses the identity generator:

@Id @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)

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 Entity Beans

public Long getId() { ... }

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

@javax.persistence.TableGenerator(
name="EMP_GEN",
table="GENERATOR_TABLE",
pkColumnName = "key",
valueColumnName = "hi"
pkColumnValue="EMP",
allocationSize=20
)
@javax.persistence.SequenceGenerator(
name="SEQ_GEN",
sequenceName="my_sequence"
)
package org.hibernate.test.metadata;

If package-info.java in the org.hibernate.test.metadata package is used to initialize the EJB configura-

tion, EMP_GEN and SEQ_GEN are application level generators. EMP_GEN defines a table based id generator using
the hilo algorithm with a max_lo of 20. The hi value is kept in a table "GENERATOR_TABLE". The information is
kept in a row where pkColumnName "key" is equals to pkColumnValue "EMP" and column valueColumnName "hi"
contains the the next high value used.

SEQ_GEN defines a sequence generator using a sequence named my_sequence. Note that this version of Hibern-
ate Annotations does not handle initialValue and allocationSize parameters in the sequence generator.

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

@Entity
@javax.persistence.SequenceGenerator(
name="SEQ_STORE",
sequenceName="my_sequence"
)
public class Store implements Serializable {
private Long id;

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

public Long getId() { return id; }
}

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

You can define a composite primary key through several syntaxes:

• annotate the component property as @Id and make the component class @Embeddable

• annotate the component property as @EmbeddedId

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 Entity Beans

• annotate the class as @IdClass and annotate each property of the entity involved in the primary key with
@Id

While quite common to the EJB2 developer, @IdClass is likely new for Hibernate users. The composite
primary key class corresponds to multiple fields or properties of the entity class, and the names of primary key
fields or properties in the primary key class and those of the entity class must match and their types must be the
same. Let's look at an example:

@Entity
@IdClass(FootballerPk.class)
public class Footballer {
//part of the id key
@Id public String getFirstname() {
return firstname;
}

public void setFirstname(String firstname) {

this.firstname = firstname;
}

//part of the id key

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

public void setLastname(String lastname) {

this.lastname = lastname;
}

public String getClub() {

return club;
}

public void setClub(String club) {

this.club = club;
}

//appropriate equals() and hashCode() implementation

}

@Embeddable
public class FootballerPk implements Serializable {
//same name and type as in Footballer
public String getFirstname() {
return firstname;
}

public void setFirstname(String firstname) {

this.firstname = firstname;
}

//same name and type as in Footballer

public String getLastname() {
return lastname;
}

public void setLastname(String lastname) {

this.lastname = lastname;
}

//appropriate equals() and hashCode() implementation

}

As you may have seen, @IdClass points to the corresponding primary key class.

While not supported by the EJB3 specification, Hibernate allows you to define associations inside a composite

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 Entity Beans

identifier. Simply use the regular annotations for that

@Entity
@AssociationOverride( name="id.channel", joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name="chan_id") )
public class TvMagazin {
@EmbeddedId public TvMagazinPk id;
@Temporal(TemporalType.TIME) Date time;
}

@Embeddable
public class TvMagazinPk implements Serializable {
@ManyToOne
public Channel channel;
public String name;
@ManyToOne
public Presenter presenter;
}

2.2.4. Mapping inheritance

EJB3 supports the three types of inheritance:

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

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

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

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

Note
Annotating interfaces is currently not supported.

Table per class

This strategy has many drawbacks (esp. with polymorphic queries and associations) explained in the EJB3
spec, the Hibernate reference documentation, Hibernate in Action, and many other places. Hibernate work
around most of them implementing this strategy using SQL UNION queries. It is commonly used for the top level
of an inheritance hierarchy:

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

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

Single table per class hierarchy

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

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

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

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

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

Joined subclasses

The @PrimaryKeyJoinColumn and @PrimaryKeyJoinColumns annotations define the primary key(s) of the
joined subclass table:

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

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

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

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

Inherit properties from superclasses

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

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

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 Entity Beans

@Entity class Order extends BaseEntity {

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

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

Note
Properties from superclasses not mapped as @MappedSuperclass are ignored.

Note
The access type (field or methods), is inherited from the root entity, unless you use the Hibernate an-
notation @AccessType

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

Note
It is allowed to mark a class as @MappedSuperclass in the middle of the mapped inheritance hierarchy.

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

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

@MappedSuperclass
public class FlyingObject implements Serializable {

public int getAltitude() {

return altitude;
}

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

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

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

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 Entity Beans

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

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

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

2.2.5. Mapping entity bean associations/relationships

One-to-one

You can associate entity beans through a one-to-one relationship using @OneToOne. There are two cases for one-
to-one associations: either the associated entities share the same primary keys values or a foreign key is held by
one of the entities (note that this FK column in the database should be constrained unique to simulate one-
to-one multiplicity).

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

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

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

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

The one to one is marked as true by using the @PrimaryKeyJoinColumn annotation.

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

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

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

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 Entity Beans

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

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

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

Many-to-one

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

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

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

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

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

public interface Company {

...

Collections

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Overview
You can map Collection, List (ie ordered lists, not indexed lists), Map and Set. The EJB3 specification de-
scribes how to map an ordered list (ie a list ordered at load time) using @javax.persistence.OrderBy annota-
tion: this annotation takes into parameter a list of comma separated (target entity) properties to order the collec-
tion by (eg firstname asc, age desc), if the string is empty, the collection will be ordered by id. @OrderBy
currently works only on collections having no association table. For true indexed collections, please refer to the
Hibernate Annotation Extensions. EJB3 allows you to map Maps using as a key one of the target entity prop-
erty using @MapKey(name="myProperty") (myProperty is a property name in the target entity). When using
@MapKey (without property name), the target entity primary key is used. The map key uses the same column as
the property pointed out: there is no additional column defined to hold the map key, and it does make sense
since the map key actually represent a target ptoperty. Be aware that once loaded, the key is no longer kept in
sync with the property, in other words, if you change the property value, the key will not change automatically
in your Java model (Map support the way Hibernate 3 does is currently not supported in this release). Many
people confuse <map> capabilities and @MapKey ones. These are two different features. @MapKey still has some
limitations, please check the forum or the JIRA tracking system for more informations.

Hibernate has several notions of collections.

Table 2.1. Collections semantics

Semantic java representation annotations

Bag semantic java.util.List, java.util.Collection @org.hibernate.annotations.Collec

tionOfElements, @OneToMany,
@ManyToMany

List semantic java.util.List @org.hibernate.annotations.Collec

tionOfElements, @OneToMany,
@ManyToMany + @OrderBy,
@org.hibernate.annotations.Index
Column

Set semantic java.util.Set @org.hibernate.annotations.Collec

tionOfElements, @OneToMany,
@ManyToMany

Map semantic java.util.Map @org.hibernate.annotations.Collec

tionOfElements, @OneToMany,
@ManyToMany + @MapKey

So specifically, java.util.List collections wo @OrderBy nor @org.hibernate.annotations.IndexColumn are go-

ing to be considered as bags.

Collection of primitive, core type or embedded objects is not supported by the EJB3 specification. Hibernate
Annotations allows them however (see Hibernate Annotation Extensions).

@Entity public class City {

@OneToMany(mappedBy="city")
@OrderBy("streetName")
public List<Street> getStreets() {
return streets;
}
...
}

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 16

 Entity Beans

@Entity public class Street {

public String getStreetName() {
return streetName;
}

@ManyToOne
public City getCity() {
return city;
}
...
}

@Entity
public class Software {
@OneToMany(mappedBy="software")
@MapKey(name="codeName")
public Map<String, Version> getVersions() {
return versions;
}
...
}

@Entity
@Table(name="tbl_version")
public class Version {
public String getCodeName() {...}

@ManyToOne
public Software getSoftware() { ... }
...
}

So City has a collection of Streets that are ordered by streetName (of Street) when the collection is loaded.
Software has a map of Versions which key is the Version codeName.

Unless the collection is a generic, you will have to define targetEntity. This is a annotation attribute that take
the target entity class as a value.

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

Bidirectional

Since many to one are (almost) always the owner side of a bidirectional relationship in the EJB3 spec, the one
to many association is annotated by @OneToMany( mappedBy=... )

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

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

Troop has a bidirectional one to many relationship with Soldier through the troop property. You don't have to

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 17

 Entity Beans

(must not) define any physical mapping in the mappedBy side.

To map a bidirectional one to many, with the one-to-many side as the owning side, you have to remove the
mappedBy element and set the many to one @JoinColumn as insertable and updatable to false. This solution is
obviously not optimized from the number of needed statements.

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

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

Unidirectional

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

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

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

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

Unidirectional with join table

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

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

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

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 Entity Beans

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

Defaults

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

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

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

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

Many-to-many

Definition

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

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

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 Entity Beans

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

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

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

Default values

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

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

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

A Store_Table is used as the join table. The Store_id column is a foreign key to the Store table. The im-
plantedIn_id column is a foreign key to the City table.

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

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

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 20

 Entity Beans

...
}
}

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

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

Transitive persistence with cascading

You probably have noticed the cascade attribute taking an array of CascadeType as a value. The cascade
concept in EJB3 is very is similar to the transitive persistence and cascading of operations in Hibernate, but
with slightly different semantics and cascading types:

• CascadeType.PERSIST: cascades the persist (create) operation to associated entities persist() is called or if
the entity is managed

• CascadeType.MERGE: cascades the merge operation to associated entities if merge() is called or if the en-
tity is managed

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

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

• CascadeType.ALL: all of the above

Please refer to the chapter 6.3 of the EJB3 specification for more information on cascading and create/merge
semantics.

Association fetching

You have the ability to either eagerly or lazily fetch associated entities. The fetch parameter can be set to
FetchType.LAZY or FetchType.EAGER. EAGER will try to use an outer join select to retrieve the associated ob-
ject, while LAZY is the default and will only trigger a select when the associated object is accessed for the first
time. EJBQL also has a fetch keyword that allows you to override laziness when doing a particular query. This
is very useful to improve performance and is decided on a use case to use case basis.

2.2.6. Mapping composite primary and foreign keys

Composite primary keys use a embedded class as the primary key representation, so you'd use the @Id and
@Embeddable annotations. Alternatively, you can use the @EmbeddedId annotation. Note that the dependent class
has to be serializable and implements equals()/hashCode(). You can also use @IdClass as described in Map-
ping identifier properties.

@Entity
public class RegionalArticle implements Serializable {

@Id

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 Entity Beans

public RegionalArticlePk getPk() { ... }

}

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

or alternatively

@Entity
public class RegionalArticle implements Serializable {

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

public class RegionalArticlePk implements Serializable { ... }

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Entity Beans

Note the explicit usage of the referencedColumnName.

2.2.7. Mapping secondary tables

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

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

private Integer id;

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

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

public String getName() {

return name;
}

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

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

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

Check out the JBoss EJB 3 tutorial or the Hibernate Annotations unit test suite for more examples.

2.3. Mapping Queries

2.3.1. Mapping EJBQL/HQL queries

You can map EJBQL/HQL queries using annotations. @NamedQuery and @NamedQueries can be defined at the
class or at the package level. However their definitions are global to the session factory/entity manager factory
scope. A named query is defined by its name and the actual query string.

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 Entity Beans

javax.persistence.NamedQueries(
@javax.persistence.NamedQuery(name="plane.getAll", query="select p from Plane p")
)
package org.hibernate.test.annotations.query;

...

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

public class MyDao {

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

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

The availabe Hibernate hints are

Table 2.2. Query hints

hint description

org.hibernate.cacheable Whether the query should interact with the second

level cache (defualt to false)

org.hibernate.cacheRegion Cache region name (default used otherwise)

org.hibernate.timeout Query timeout

org.hibernate.fetchSize resultset fetch size

org.hibernate.flushMode Flush mode used for this query

org.hibernate.cacheMode Cache mode used for this query

org.hibernate.readOnly Entities loaded by this query should be in read only

mode or not (default to false)

org.hibernate.comment Query comment added to the generated SQL

2.3.2. Mapping native queries

You can also map a native query (ie a plain SQL query). To achieve that, you need to describe the SQL result-
set structure using @SqlResultSetMapping (or @SqlResultSetMappings if you plan to define several resulset
mappings). Like @NamedQuery, a @SqlResultSetMapping can be defined at both package level or class level.
However its scope is global to the application. As we will see, a resultSetMapping parameter is defined the
@NamedNativeQuery, it represents the name of a defined @SqlResultSetMapping. The resultset mapping de-
clares the entities retrieved by this native query. Each field of the entity is bound to an SQL alias (or column

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 24

 Entity Beans

name). All fields of the entity including the ones of subclasses and the foreign key columns of related entities
have to be present in the SQL query. Field definitions are optional provided that they map to the same column
name as the one declared on the class property.

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

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

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

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

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

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

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

public void setModel(String model) {

this.model = model;
}

public double getSpeed() {

return speed;
}

public void setSpeed(double speed) {

this.speed = speed;
}
}

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

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 25

 Entity Beans

lowed by a dot ("."), followed by the name or the field or property of the primary key.

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

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

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

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

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

public void setCaptain(Captain captain) {

this.captain = captain;
}

public String getModel() {

return model;
}

public void setModel(String model) {

this.model = model;
}

public double getSpeed() {

return speed;
}

public void setSpeed(double speed) {

this.speed = speed;
}

public Dimensions getDimensions() {

return dimensions;
}

public void setDimensions(Dimensions dimensions) {

this.dimensions = dimensions;

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 26

 Entity Beans

}
}

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

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

public void setFirstname(String firstname) {

this.firstname = firstname;
}

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

public void setLastname(String lastname) {

this.lastname = lastname;
}
}

Note
If you look at the dimension property, you'll see that Hibernate supports the dotted notation for embed-
ded objects (you can even have nested embedded objects). EJB3 implementations do not have to sup-
port this feature, we do :-)

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

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

resultClass=SpaceShip.class)
public class SpaceShip {

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

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

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

2.4. Hibernate Annotation Extensions

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

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

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 27

 Entity Beans

2.4.1. Entity

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

@org.hibernate.annotations.Entity adds additional metadata that may be needed beyond what is defined in
the standard @Entity

• mutable: whether this entity is mutable or not

• dynamicInsert: allow dynamic SQL for inserts

• dynamicUpdate: allow dynamic SQL for updates

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

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

morphismType.EXPLICIT

• persister: allow the overriding of the default persister implementation

• optimisticLock: optimistic locking strategy (OptimisticLockType.VERSION, OptimisticLockType.NONE,

OptimisticLockType.DIRTY or OptimisticLockType.ALL)

Note
@javax.persistence.Entity is still mandatory, @org.hibernate.annotations.Entity is not a replacement.

Here are some additional Hibernate annotation extensions

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

@org.hibernate.annotations.Proxy defines the laziness attributes of the entity. lazy (default to true) define
whether the class is lazy or not. proxyClassName is the interface used to generate the proxy (default is the class
itself).

@org.hibernate.annotations.Where defines an optional SQL WHERE clause used when instances of this
class is retrieved.

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

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

stead of the regular Hibernate mechanism.

@Table(appliesTo="tableName", indexes = { @Index(name="index1", columnNames={"column1",

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

Note

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 28

 Entity Beans

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

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

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

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

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

2.4.2. Identifier

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

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

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

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

2.4.3. Property

Access type

The access type is guessed from the position of @Id or @EmbeddedId in the entity hierarchy. Sub-entities, em-
bedded objects and mapped superclass inherit the access type from the root entity.

In Hibernate, you can override the access type to:

• use a custom access type strategy

• fine tune the access type at the class level or at the property level

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 29

 Entity Beans

An @AccessType annotation has been introduced to support this behavior. You can define the access type on

• an entity

• a superclass

• an embeddable object

• a property

The access type is overriden for the annotated element, if overriden on a class, all the properties of the given
class inherit the access type. For root entities, the access type is considered to be the default one for the whole
hierarchy (overridable at class or property level).

If the access type is marked as "property", the getters are scanned for annotations, if the access type is marked
as "field", the fields are scanned for annotations. Otherwise the elements marked with @Id or @embeddedId
are scanned.

You can override an access type for a property, but the element to annotate will not be influenced: for example
an entity having access type field, can annotate a field with @AccessType("property"), the access type will
then be property for this attribute, the the annotations still have to be carried on the field.

If a superclass or an embeddable object is not annotated, the root entity access type is used (even if an access
type has been define on an intermediate superclass or embeddable object). The russian doll principle does not
apply.

@Entity
public class Person implements Serializable {
@Id @GeneratedValue //access type field
Integer id;

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

@Embeddable
@AccessType("property") //override access type for all properties in Country
public class Country implements Serializable {
private String iso2;
private String name;

public String getIso2() {

return iso2;
}

public void setIso2(String iso2) {

this.iso2 = iso2;
}

@Column(name = "countryName")
public String getName() {
return name;
}

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}
}

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 30

 Entity Beans

Formula

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

@Formula("obj_length * obj_height * obj_width")

public long getObjectVolume()

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

Type

@org.hibernate.annotations.Type overrides the default hibernate type used: this is generally not necessary
since the type is correctly inferred by Hibernate. Please refer to the Hibernate reference guide for more inform-
ations on the Hibernate types.

@org.hibernate.annotations.TypeDef and @org.hibernate.annotations.TypeDefs allows you to declare

type definitions. These annotations are placed at the class or package level. Note that these definitions will be
global for the session factory (even at the class level) and that type definition has to be defined before any us-
age.

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

...
public class Forest {
@Type(type="caster")
public String getSmallText() {
...
}

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

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

public class MonetaryAmount implements Serializable {

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

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 31

 Entity Beans

Index

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

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

2.4.4. Inheritance

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

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

2.4.5. Single Association related annotations

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

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

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

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

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

2.4.6. Collection related annotations

Parameter annotations

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 32

 Entity Beans

It is possible to set

• the batch size for collections using @BatchSize

• the where clause, using @Where

• the check clause, using @Check

• the SQL order by clause, using @OrderBy

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

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

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

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

Extra collection types

Beyond EJB3, Hibernate Annotations supports true List and Array. Map your collection the same way as usual
and add the @IndexColumn. This annotation allows you to describe the column that will hold the index. You
can also declare the index value in DB that represent the first element (aka as base index). The usual value is 0
or 1.

@OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
@IndexColumn(name = "drawer_position", base=1)
public List<Drawer> getDrawers() {
return drawers;
}

Note
If you forgot to set @IndexColumn, the bag semantic is applied

Hibernate Annotations also supports collections of core types (Integer, String, Enums, ...), collections of em-
beddable objects and even arrays of primitive types. This is known as collection of elements.

A collection of elements as to be annotated as @CollectionOfElements (as a replacement of @OneToMany) To

define the collection table, the @JoinTable annotation is used on the association property, joinColumns defines
the join columns between the entity primary table and the collection table (inverseJoincolumn is useless and
should be left empty). For collection of core types or array of primitive types, you can override the element
column definition using a @Column on the association property. You can also override the columns of a collec-
tion of embeddable object using @AttributeOverride.

@Entity
public class Boy {
private Integer id;
private Set<String> nickNames = new HashSet<String>();

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 33

 Entity Beans

private int[] favoriteNumbers;

private Set<Toy> favoriteToys = new HashSet<Toy>();
private Set<Character> characters = new HashSet<Character>();

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

@CollectionOfElements
public Set<String> getNickNames() {
return nickNames;
}

@CollectionOfElements
@JoinTable(
table=@Table(name="BoyFavoriteNumbers"),
joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name="BoyId")
)
@Column(name="favoriteNumber", nullable=false)
@IndexColumn(name="nbr_index")
public int[] getFavoriteNumbers() {
return favoriteNumbers;
}

@CollectionOfElements
@AttributeOverride( name="serial", column=@Column(name="serial_nbr") )
public Set<Toy> getFavoriteToys() {
return favoriteToys;
}

@CollectionOfElements
public Set<Character> getCharacters() {
return characters;
}
...
}

public enum Character {

GENTLE,
NORMAL,
AGGRESSIVE,
ATTENTIVE,
VIOLENT,
CRAFTY
}

@Embeddable
public class Toy {
public String name;
public String serial;

public String getName() {

return name;
}

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}

public String getSerial() {

return serial;
}

public void setSerial(String serial) {

this.serial = serial;
}

public boolean equals(Object o) {

if ( this == o ) return true;
if ( o == null || getClass() != o.getClass() ) return false;

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 34

 Entity Beans

final Toy toy = (Toy) o;

if ( !name.equals( toy.name ) ) return false;

if ( !serial.equals( toy.serial ) ) return false;

return true;
}

public int hashCode() {

int result;
result = name.hashCode();
result = 29 * result + serial.hashCode();
return result;
}
}

Note
Previous versions of Hibernate Annotations used the @OneToMany to mark a collection of elements. Due
to semantic inconsistencies, we've introduced the annotation @CollectionOfElements. Marking collec-
tions of elements the old way still work but is considered deprecated and is going to be unsupported in
future releases

2.4.7. Cache

In order to optimize your database accesses, you can activave the so called second level cache of Hibernate.
This cache is configurable on a per entity and per collection basis.

@org.hibernate.annotations.Cache defines the caching strategy and region of a given second level cache.
This annotation can be applied on the root entity (not the sub entities), and on the collections.

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

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

@Cache(
CacheConcurrencyStrategy usage(); (1)
String region() default ""; (2)
String include() default "all"; (3)
)

(1) usage: the given cache concurrency strategy (NONE, READ_ONLY, NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE,
READ_WRITE, TRANSACTIONAL)
(2) region (optional): the cache region (default to the fqcn of the class or the fq role name of the collection)
(3) include (optional): all to include all properties, non-lazy to only include non lazy properties (default all).

2.4.8. Filters

Hibernate has the notion of data filter that can be applied at runtime on a given session. Those filters has to be
defined first.

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 35

 Entity Beans

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

same name. A filter definition has a name() and an array of parameters(). A @ParamDef has a name and a type.
You can also define a defaultCondition() parameter for a given @filterDef to set the default condition to use
when none are defined in the @Filter. A @FilterDef(s) can be defined at the class or package level.

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

@Entity
@FilterDef(name="minLength", parameters={ @ParamDef( name="minLength", type="integer" ) } )
@Filters( {
@Filter(name="betweenLength", condition=":minLength <= length and :maxLength >= length"),
@Filter(name="minLength", condition=":minLength <= length")
} )
public class Forest { ... }

2.4.9. Queries

Since Hibernate has more features on named queries than the one defined in the EJB3 specification,
@org.hibernate.annotations.NamedQuery, @org.hibernate.annotations.NamedQueries,
@org.hibernate.annotations.NamedNativeQuery and @org.hibernate.annotations.NamedNativeQueries
have been introduced. They add some attributes to the standard version and can be used as a replacement:

• flushMode: define the query flush mode (Always, Auto, Commit or Never)

• cacheable: whether the query should be cached or not

• cacheRegion: cache region used if the query is cached

• fetchSize: JDBC statement fetch size for this query

• timeout: query time out

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

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

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

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

Note, that the EJB3 public final draft has introduced the notion of @QueryHint, which is probably a better way
to define those hints.

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 36

Chapter 3. Hibernate Validator
Annotations are a very convenient and elegant way to specify invariant constraints for a domain model. You
can, for example, express that a property should never be null, that the account balance should be strictly posit-
ive, etc. These domain model constraints are declared in the bean itself by annotating its properties. A validator
can then read them and check for constraint violations. The validation mechanism can be executed in different
layers in your application without having to duplicate any of these rules (presentation layer, data access layer).
Hibernate Validator has been designed for that purpose.

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

Each constraint annotation is associated to a validator implementation responsible for checking the constraint
on the entity instance. A validator can also (optionally) apply the constraint to the Hibernate metamodel, allow-
ing Hibernate to generate DDL that expresses the constraint. With the appropriate event listener, you can ex-
ecute the checking operation on inserts and updates done by Hibernate. Hibernate Validator is not limited to use
with Hibernate. You can easily use it anywhere in your application.

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

3.1. Constraints

3.1.1. What is a constraint?

A constraint is represented by an annotation. A constraint usually has some attributes used to parameterize the
constraints limits. The constraint apply to the annotated element.

3.1.2. Built in constraints

Hibernate Validator comes with some built-in constraints, which covers most basic data checks. As we'll see
later, you're not limited to them, you can in a minute write your own constraints.

Table 3.1. Built-in constraints

Annotation Apply on Runtime checking Hibernate Metadata im-

pact

@Length(min=, max=) property (String) check if the string length Column length will be set
match the range to max

@Max(value=) property (numeric or check if the value is less Add a check constraint on
string representation of a than or equals to max the column
numeric)

@Min(value=) property (numeric or check if the value is more Add a check constraint on
string representation of a than or equals to min the column
numeric)

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 37

 Hibernate Validator

Annotation Apply on Runtime checking Hibernate Metadata im-

pact

@NotNull property check if the value is not Column(s) are not null
null

@Past property (date or calen- check if the date is in the Add a check constraint on
dar) past the column

@Future property (date or calen- check if the date is in the none

dar) future

@Pattern(regex="regexp" property (string) check if the property none

, flag=) match the regular expres-
sion given a match flag
(see
java.util.regex.Patte
rn )

@Range(min=, max=) property (numeric or check if the value is Add a check constraint on
string representation of a between min and max the column
numeric) (included)

@Size(min=, max=) property (array, collec- check if the element size none
tion, map) is between min and max
(included)

@AssertFalse property check that the method none

evaluates to false (useful
for constraints expressed
in code rather than an-
notations)

@AssertTrue property check that the method none

evaluates to true (useful
for constraints expressed
in code rather than an-
notations)

@Valid property (object) perform validation re- none

cursively on the associ-
ated object. If the object
is a Collection or an ar-
ray, the elements are val-
idated recursively. If the
object is a Map, the value
elements are validated re-
cursively.

@Email property (String) check whether the string none

is conform to the email
address specification

3.1.3. Error messages

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 38

 Hibernate Validator

Hibernate Validator comes with a default set of error messages translated in a few languages (if yours is not
part of it, please sent us a patch). You can override those messages by creating a ValidatorMes-
sages.properties or (ValidatorMessages_loc.properties) out of
org.hibernate.validator.resources.DefaultValidatorMessages.properties and change the appropriate
keys. You can even add your own additional set of messages while writing your validator annotations.

Alternatively you can provide a ResourceBundle while checking programmatically the validation rules on a
bean.

3.1.4. Writing your own constraints

Extending the set of built-in constraints is extremely easy. Any constraint consists of two pieces: the constraint
descriptor (the annotation) and the constraint validator (the implementation class). Here is a simple user-
defined descriptor:

@ValidatorClass(CapitalizedValidator.class)
@Target(METHOD)
@Retention(RUNTIME)
@Documented
public @interface Capitalized {
CapitalizeType type() default Capitalize.FIRST;
String message() default "has incorrect capitalization";
}

type is a parameter describing how the property should to be capitalized. This is a user parameter fully depend-
ant on the annotation business.

message is the default string used to describe the constraint violation and is mandatory. You can hard code the
string or you can externalize part/all of it through the Java ResourceBundle mechanism. Parameters values are
going to be injected inside the message when the {parameter} string is found (in our example Capitalization
is not {type} would generate Capitalization is not FIRST), externalizing the whole string in Valid-
atorMessages.properties is considered good practice. See Error messages.

@ValidatorClass(CapitalizedValidator.class)
@Target(METHOD)
@Retention(RUNTIME)
@Documented
public @interface Capitalized {
CapitalizeType type() default Capitalize.FIRST;
String message() default "{validator.capitalized}";
}

...
#in ValidatorMessages.properties
validator.capitalized=Capitalization is not {type}

As you can see the {} notation is recursive.

To link a descriptor to its validator implementation, we use the @ValidatorClass meta-annotation. The validat-
or class parameter must name a class which implements Validator<ConstraintAnnotation>.

We now have to implement the validator (ie. the rule checking implementation). A validation implementation
can check the value of the a property (by implementing PropertyConstraint) and/or can modify the hibernate
mapping metadata to express the constraint at the database level (by implementing PersistentClassCon-
straint).

public class CapitalizedValidator

implements Validator<Capitalized>, PropertyConstraint {

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 39

 Hibernate Validator

private CapitalizeType type;

//part of the Validator<Annotation> contract,

//allows to get and use the annotation values
public void initialize(Capitalized parameters) {
type = parameters.type();
}

//part of the property constraint contract

public boolean isValid(Object value) {
if (value==null) return true;
if ( !(value instanceof String) ) return false;
String string = (String) value;
if (type == CapitalizeType.ALL) {
return string.equals( string.toUpperCase() );
}
else {
String first = string.substring(0,1);
return first.equals( first.toUpperCase();
}
}
}

The isValid() method should return false if the constraint has been violated. For more examples, refer to the
built-in validator implementations.

We only have seen property level validation, but you can write a Bean level validation annotation. Instead of
receiving the return instance of a property, the bean itself will be passed to the validator. To activate the valida-
tion checking, just annotated the bean itself instead. A small sample can be found in the unit test suite.

3.1.5. Annotating your domain model

Since you are already familiar with annotations now, the syntax should be very familiar.

public class Address {

private String line1;
private String line2;
private String zip;
private String state;
private String country;
private long id;

// a not null string of 20 characters maximum

@Length(max=20)
@NotNull
public String getCountry() {
return country;
}

// a non null string

@NotNull
public String getLine1() {
return line1;
}

//no constraint
public String getLine2() {
return line2;
}

// a not null string of 3 characters maximum

@Length(max=3) @NotNull
public String getState() {
return state;
}

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 Hibernate Validator

// a not null numeric string of 5 characters maximum

// if the string is longer, the message will
//be searched in the resource bundle at key 'long'
@Length(max=5, message="{long}")
@Pattern(regex="[0-9]+")
@NotNull
public String getZip() {
return zip;
}

// should always be true

@AssertTrue
public boolean isValid() {
return true;
}

// a numeric between 1 and 2000

@Id @Min(1)
@Range(max=2000)
public long getId() {
return id;
}
}

While the example only shows public property validation, you can also annotate fields of any kind of visibility.

@MyBeanConstraint(max=45)
public class Dog {
@AssertTrue private boolean isMale;
@NotNull protected String getName() { ... };
...
}

You can also annotate interfaces. Hibernate Validator will check all superclasses and interfaces extended or im-
plemented by a given bean to read the appropriate validator annotations.

public interface Named {

@NotNull String getName();
...
}

public class Dog implements Named {

@AssertTrue private boolean isMale;

public String getName() { ... };

The name property will be checked for nullity when the Dog bean is validated.

3.2. Using the Validator framework

Hibernate Validator is intended to be used to implement multi-layered data validation, where we express con-
straints in one place (the annotated domain model) and apply them at various different layers of the application.

3.2.1. Database schema-level validation

Out of the box, Hibernate Annotations will translate the constraints you have defined for your entities into map-
ping metadata. For example, if a property of your entity is annotated @NotNull, its columns will be declared as
not null in the DDL schema generated by Hibernate.

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 Hibernate Validator

3.2.2. Hibernate event-based validation

Hibernate Validator has two built-in Hibernate event listeners. Whenever a PreInsertEvent or PreUp-
dateEvent occurs, the listeners will verify all constraints of the entity instance and throw an exception if any
constraint is violated. Basically, objects will be checked before any inserts and before any updates made by Hi-
bernate. This is the most convenient and the easiest way to activate the validation process. On constraint viola-
tion, the event will raise a runtime InvalidStateException which contains an array of InvalidValues describ-
ing each failure.

<hibernate-configuration>
...
<event type="pre-update">
<listener
class="org.hibernate.validator.event.ValidatePreUpdateEventListener"/>
</event>
<event type="pre-insert">
<listener
class="org.hibernate.validator.event.ValidatePreInsertEventListener"/>
</event>
</hibernate-configuration>

Note
When using Hibernate Entity Manager, the Validation framework is activated out of the box. If the
beans are not annotated with validation annotations, there is no performance cost.

3.2.3. Application-level validation

Hibernate Validator can be applied anywhere in your application code.

ClassValidator personValidator = new ClassValidator( Person.class );

ClassValidator addressValidator = new ClassValidator( Address.class, ResourceBundle.getBundle("message

InvalidValue[] validationMessages = addressValidator.getInvalidValues(address);

The first two lines prepare the Hibernate Validator for class checking. The first one relies upon the error mes-
sages embedded in Hibernate Validator (see Error messages), the second one uses a resource bundle for these
messages. It is considered a good practice to execute these lines once and cache the validator instances.

The third line actually validates the Address instance and returns an array of InvalidValues. Your application
logic will then be able to react to the failure.

You can also check a particular property instead of the whole bean. This might be useful for property per prop-
erty user interaction

ClassValidator addressValidator = new ClassValidator( Address.class, ResourceBundle.getBundle("message

//only get city property invalid values

InvalidValue[] validationMessages = addressValidator.getInvalidValues(address, "city");

//only get potential city property invalid values

InvalidValue[] validationMessages = addressValidator.getPotentialInvalidValues("city", "Paris")

3.2.4. Validation informations

As a validation information carrier, hibernate provide an array of InvalidValue. Each InvalidValue has a

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 42

 Hibernate Validator

buch of methods describing the individual issues.

getBeanClass() retrieves the failing bean type

getBean()retrieves the failing instance (if any ie not when using getPotentianInvalidValues())

getValue() retrieves the failing value

getMessage() retrieves the proper internationalized error message

getRootBean() retrieves the root bean instance generating the issue (useful in conjunction with @Valid), is null
if getPotentianInvalidValues() is used.

getPropertyPath() retrieves the dotted path of the failing property starting from the root bean

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 43

Chapter 4. Hibernate Lucene Integration
Lucene is a high-performance Java search engine library available from the Apache Software Foundation. Hi-
bernate Annotations includes a package of annotations that allows you to mark any domain model object as in-
dexable and have Hibernate maintain a Lucene index of any instances persisted via Hibernate.

4.1. Using Lucene to index your entities

4.1.1. Annotating your domain model

First, we must declare a persistent class as @Indexed:

@Entity
@Indexed(index="indexes/essays")
public class Essay {
...
}

The index attribute tells Hibernate where the Lucene index is located (a directory on your file system). If you
wish to define a base directory for all lucene indexes, you can use the hibernate.lucene.index_dir property
in your configuration file.

Lucene indexes contain four kinds of fields: keyword fields, text fields, unstored fields and unindexed fields.
Hibernate Annotations provides annotations to mark a property of an entity as one of the first three kinds of in-
dexed fields.

@Entity
@Indexed(index="indexes/essays")
public class Essay {
...

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

@Text(name="Abstract")
public String getSummary() { return summary; }

@Lob
@Unstored
public String getText() { return text; }

These annotations define an index with three fields: Id, Abstract and Text.

Note: you must specify @Keyword(id=true) on the identifier property of your entity class.

The analyzer class used to index the elements is configurable through the hibernate.lucene.analyzer prop-
erty. If none defined, org.apache.lucene.analysis.standard.StandardAnalyzer is used as the default.

4.1.2. Enabling automatic indexing

Finally, we enable the LuceneEventListener for the three Hibernate events that occur after changes are com-
mitted to the database.

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 Hibernate Lucene Integration

<hibernate-configuration>
...
<event type="post-commit-update"
<listener
class="org.hibernate.lucene.event.LuceneEventListener"/>
</event>
<event type="post-commit-insert"
<listener
class="org.hibernate.lucene.event.LuceneEventListener"/>
</event>
<event type="post-commit-delete"
<listener
class="org.hibernate.lucene.event.LuceneEventListener"/>
</event>
</hibernate-configuration>

Hibernate 3.1 beta 9 45