Type conversion for a foreign key

magic · **Posted:** Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:27 am

Hibernate version: 3.0beta4

Hi,

i'd like use hibernate on an exsiting schema (that i can't modify). I have several tables (be A and B) and a special table containing some labels.
The primary key of A is a long.
The primary key of B is a string.

So the description of my labels table is:
foreign_key: string
type: string ('A' or 'B' or other for other tables)
locale: string (iso code... great idea to support natively this type in hibernate)
label: my label in the specified locale for the specified (type) object.

So, each of my objects A and B have a map of labels (key of map is the locale). I don't find how map this schema. Any idea ?

How specify:
- the type in the mapping file ? (or by another way ?)
- convert the key ?

Code:

  <class name="A" table="table_a">
    <id name="id" column="id" type="long" unsaved-value="null">
      <generator class="increment"/>
    </id>
<!-- snip properties -->
    <map name="labels" table="x_label" lazy="false">
      <key not-null="true">
        <column name="lbl_id"/>
        <!--<column name="lbl_type" formula="'A'"/>-->
      </key>
      <map-key column="loc_id" type="locale"/>
      <element column="lbl_value" type="string"/>
    </map>
</class>

gavin · **Posted:** Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:35 am

Code:

<class name="A" table="table_a">
    <id name="id" column="id" type="long" unsaved-value="null">
      <generator class="increment"/>
    </id>
<!-- snip properties -->
    <map name="labels" table="x_label" lazy="false" 
           where="lbl_type='A'">
      <key column="lbl_id"/>
      <map-key column="loc_id" type="locale"/>
      <element column="lbl_value" type="string"/>
    </map>
</class> 

magic · **Posted:** Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:51 am

Thans a lot. That works fine to read data... but (of course, we have not specified what write in the lbl_type column) not to write data :-/

I just found UserCollectionType interface, is that the solution ?