<class name="Employee" table="tbl_employee">
<id name="id">
<generator class="native" />
</id>
<set name="departments" lazy="true" inverse="true" cascade="all">
<key column="employee_id" />
<one-to-many class="EmployeeDepartment" />
</set>
</class>

<class name="EmployeeDepartment" table="tbl_employee_dep">
<composite-id name="id" >
<key-property name="departmentId" column="department_id" />
<key-property name="employeeId" column="employee_id" />
</composite-id>
.....
</class>

<class name="Department" table="tbl_department">
<id name="id">
<generator class="native" />
</id>
.....
</class>

public class EmployeeDepartment {
private EmployeeDepartmentID id;
private Employee employee;
private Department department;
....

}

public class EmployeeDepartmentID {
private int employeeId;
private int departmentId;
}


The problem is: when I create a new Employee a Department is assigned to that employee BEFORE that employee is saved. Because of that the EmployeeDepartmentID.employeeId cannot be set (becase Employee.id is null). Is there a way Hibernate will automatically set EmployeeDepartmentID.employeeId for me or there's some even I can intercept and populate that myself in code?

Thank you.

To reply to my own question, this can be easily done using a generator. Can be closed.