I am currently developing an application using Hibernate 3.2 annotations and Oracle 10g. A requirement of the project is that all dates generated in db are derived from a function not from sysdate or systimestamp. Basically the function returns sysdate/systimestamp plus (or minus) x days - where x is a value stored in database. This is supposed to make testing easier ! Unfortunately I have hit a snag when using the @Version annotation for fields mapped to timestamps.

@Column (name="LAST_MODIFIED_TIMESTAMP")
@Temporal(TemporalType.TIMESTAMP)
@Version
public Date getDateLastModified() {
return dateLastModified;
}

If (big assumption) I have understood things correctly Hibernate manages updates to this field as part of its approach to optimistic locking and updates it with reference to sysdate/systimestamp. Is this right ? Is there a way I can influence how Hibernate updates this value - e.g point it to the function ? Or am I forced to introduce an extra versionId field to my model and run my locking from there? Any guidance much appreciated.

Sorry if that all sounds confused but whilst Hibernate is v clever I am not ! Sorry too if this is covered somewhere in the documentation etc - have spent time looking and will continue to do so but with little luck so far.

Thanks