I am trying to map an inheritance relationship using table per concrete class, using implicit polymorphism. I have been trying to follow the example in the documentation but it is very unclear. I have two concrete classes: car and bicycle that need to implement the interface vehicle. The interface vehicle has the common properties: id, and color. My mappings look like this:

<class name="Car" table="tbl_car">
<id name="id" column="pk_car_id" type="integer">
<generator class="native"/>
</id>
<property name="color" column="car_color" type="string"/>
<property name="licenseNumber" column="license_number" type="string"/>

<any name="vehicle" meta-type="string" id-type="integer">
<meta-value value="CAR" class="Car"/>
<meta-value value="BIKE" class="Bicycle"/>
<column name="color"/>
<column name="id"/>
</any>
</class>

<class name="Bicycle" table="tbl_bicycle">
<id name="id" column="pk_bicycle_id" type="integer">
<generator class="native"/>
</id>
<property name="color" column="bicycle_color" type="string"/>
<property name="isMountainBike" column="is_mountain" type="boolean"/>

<any name="vehicle" meta-type="string" id-type="integer">
<meta-value value="tbl_car" class="Car"/>
<meta-value value="tbl_bicycle" class="Bicycle"/>
<column name="color"/>
<column name="id"/>
</any>
</class>

I know that this isn't right but I am trying to figure out how to correctly use the any attribute to achieve this mapping. I can't figure it out from the documentation.

I don't think what you're describing requires the <any> mapping or is the correct use for it.

Just because your Java objects use inheritance, doesn't mean your mapping requires it. It looks to me like your example would work fine if you just removed the <any> mappings.

If that's the case then what is that whole section 9.1.6 in the hibernate manual entitled "Table per concrete class, using implicit polymorphism" talking about:

http://www.hibernate.org/hib_docs/v3/reference/en/html_single/#inheritance-tableperconcreate-polymorphism

It clearly seems to state that you should use the any tag for this sort of relationship. I am just trying to figure out exactly what it is trying to say.

I believe this is talking about another object that might have any one of these objects as a property.