We have parents with childs (one-to-many) and we want to load parents with lazy childs. In the same step we want to know the number of childs of every parent.

Because we want show the user only the existing of childs but don't want to load this childs with join.

How is this task possible in HQL or Criteria Query? And should I extend my objects and xml mappings?

Best regards
Amin K.

Hibernate version: 3
SQL Server and Oracle

if I were you, I'd create a named sql query, and extend the POJO for that class and add a method to call aforementioned named sql query upon object creation.

You can count the number of query results without actually returning them:
( (Integer) session.iterate("select count(*) from ....").next() ).intValue()

reply if this helped :)