Hibernate version:
HibernateTools-3.1.0.beta2

I have table names of table1, table2 and I'd like to generate POJO class names of table1DTO table2DTO.

Also I'd like to generate a business object class for each POJO class named table1BOParent and table2BOParent for example with each one invoking the corresponding DAO class. Then *whew* I'd like to generate a blank business object stub table1BO, table2BO inheriting from the business object class. These *BO classes wouldnt be generated if one already exists. That way I could override the business object without having to worry about the automatically generated files clobbering my changes.

Are these things easily done, if so where can I look for more information? I was able to override dao/daohom.vm and pojo/*.vm. But it didn't seem quite useful. I think the declaration name needs to have "DTO" appended to it for POJOs but not for DAO's / business objects.

Thanks for any help.

I don't think hbm2java does this anymore.

Here how I do it:
I created an xsl stylesheet that transforms the mapping.hbm file into a file to be used by hbm2java.
The transformation forces all the classes down into a subclass of itself. Its superclass gets renamed to Base + ClassName. That's pretty much all it does, and pretty much leaves everything else intact (there are some weird things that happend due to DTD. I'll fill you in on if you want to try it).
The output file is used by hbm2java. So for each class you initially started out with, you end with a 'Base' class that has all the bean properties and a subclass that is empty ("business class").
I generate the classes in an Ant task, but I have to perform some trickery there to get it to no overwrite my business classes... so I am free to edit those without worrying about the persistent properties.

Anyway, it's a whole process. If you want to try it out, let me know if you have more questions.

That generated file is only for use by hbm2java. The original mapping file is the one used by Hibernate at run time.

hbm2java can be extended with this but noone have yet contributed the functionallity.

I always use <meta name="generated-class">MyWhateverBase</meta> to handle this case.

the xls trick i'm quite sure is nice, but probably doesn't handle all the "weird" issues there are with this "generate base class" pattern.

Yeah, definintely. It was just a quick & dirty trick at the time and wouldn't use it as a catch-all for everyone's mapping (since, as you said, as-is, wouldn't handle all cases). Extending hbm2java would be the better way if you have more time to do it right.