Hibernate version: 2.1.7

Mapping documents:

Code between sessionFactory.openSession() and session.close():

Full stack trace of any exception that occurs:

Name and version of the database you are using:

The generated SQL (show_sql=true):

Debug level Hibernate log excerpt:


How do you represent a many-to-many relationship of class A with it self? For example if you have three instances of A: a1, a2, a3. You want to association a1 with a2 and a3. So when you lookup a1 you have references to a2 and a3. When you lookup a3, you have references to a2 and a1.

What confuses me is I really only have one mapping. Then inverse="true" confuses me because it's setup on both ends.

Thanks in advance.