Hibernate docs are curiously brief on this subject so any clarification will be appreciated.

Does optimistic-lock="dirty" mean the user is allowed to update a stale object as long as the columns the user is trying to change haven't been changed by the prior update?

If not, is there a way to enforce this type of optimistic lock? Majority of our entities are constantly being updated by various automatic processes and as long as the columns don't collide, the updates are allowed.

Thanks much,
hster

Nevermind. Dirty works exactly as I expected. I only posed the above simplistic question as I was having trouble with a special usertype which appears to always trigger the StaleObjectStateException.