Hi,
I have a table (Items) which is mapped to three different java classes using a discriminator column and subclasses in the Items.hbm.xml mappings file.
Until now the discriminator has been a (hibernate type) 'string' and java class implementation has had a 'private String type' to match the discriminator.
This works fine.
However, I wanted to change the 'private String type' in the java class implementation to be a java enumeration value 'private MyTypeEnum type' instead.
I did this for another column which was previously a string as well by defining the type in the property-mapping for the column and it worked fine:
Works:

But when I try to do the same discriminator column I get an 'Invalid mapping exception'. See the stack trace at the bottom of the message.
Doesn't work:

Any suggestions how I can use an enum as a discriminator in the hibernate mapping file?

Stack trace:
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'hibernateSessionFactory' defined in class path resource [spring-localUnitClaims.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is org.hibernate.MappingException: invalid mapping
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1336)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:471)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory$1.run(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:409)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(AccessController.java:214)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:380)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:264)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:220)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:261)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:185)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:164)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionValueResolver.resolveReference(BeanDefinitionValueResolver.java:269)
... 35 more
Caused by: org.hibernate.MappingException: invalid mapping
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.addInputStream(Configuration.java:425)
at org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.LocalSessionFactoryBean.buildSessionFactory(LocalSessionFactoryBean.java:631)
at org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.AbstractSessionFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(AbstractSessionFactoryBean.java:211)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1367)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1333)
... 45 more
Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: The content of element type "discriminator" must match "(column|formula)?".
at org.apache.xerces.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.error(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.handleEndElement(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.endElement(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl.scanEndElement(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDispatcher.dispatch(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.dom4j.io.SAXReader.read(SAXReader.java:465)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.addInputStream(Configuration.java:422)
... 49 more