I have a database whose dates and time are split across a number of fields. Such as:
CENTURY, YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, MIN, SECOND (Where all fields are 2 digit)

Being very new to hibernate I was wondering if anyone could suggest a nice way to deal with this. I am not concerned with performance at this time, just simplicity of implementation. What I thinking right now is something along the lines of Grouping (CENTURY, YEAR, MONTH, DAY) into a date, and (HOUR, MIN, SECOND) into a time along with the rest of the fields as an inner part of what would become a nested select where hibernate could stand on that as a starting point. The table will be used with criteria if that matters.

I'm just starting out here and don't yet know the tao of Hibernate... I do have the hibernate reference manual, and am thinking about getting "Java Persistence with Hibernate" as I really like "Struts 2 in action" by the same publisher.

So I would love the solution to come on a silver platter, who wouldn't but I would very much appreciate any sources that you've found helpful so I can skin my own cats, and/or a page reference to get me started in the Hibernate reference manual is just as good too.