I am confused about how Criteria.setFetchMode() is supposed to be used.
I've setup two simple classes: A and B.

Class A contains an instance of Class B.

Each class has one other property and an ID.

A has a name (String).
B has a color (String).

My data looks like the following:

A:
id name b_id
1 foo <null>
2 bar 2

B:
id color
1 red
2 green
3 blue

I would like to fetch a list of "A" objects ordered by color.

My beans look like this:

public class A {

protected String id;
protected String name;
protected B b;

public A () {
// instantiate a new association entity if it is null
if (b == null) {
b = new B();
}
}

public A (
String pId, String pName, Long pBId) {
this.setId(pId);
this.setName(pName);
this.setBId(pBId);
}

public String getId() {
return this.id;
}

public void setId(String pId) {
this.id = pId;
}

public String getName() {
return this.name;
}

public void setName(String pName) {
this.name = pName;
}

public String getBId() {
if (b == null) {
return null;
}
return this.getB().getId();
}

public void setBId(String pBId) {
if (pBId == null) {
b = null;
return;
}
else if (b == null) {
b = new B();
}
this.getB().setId(pBId);
}

public B getB () {
return b;
}

public void setB (pB) {
this.b = pB;
}

}

public class B {

protected String id;
protected String color;

public B () {
}

public B (
String pId, String pColor) {
this.setId(pId);
this.setColor(pColor);
}

public String getId() {
return this.id;
}

public void setId(String pId) {
this.id = pId;
}

public String getColor() {
return this.color;
}

public void setColor(String pColor) {
this.color = pColor;
}
}

If I use

Criteria criteriaA = session.createCriteria( A.class );
Criteria criteriaB = criteriaA.createCriteria( B.class );
criteriaB.addOrder( Order.asc("color") );
criteriaA.list();

Hibernate is using inner join.

So I tried to use

Criteria criteriaA = session.createCriteria( A.class );
criteriaA.setFetchMode(B.class, FetchMode.join);
criteriaA.list();

Now Hibernate uses left join.
But I still have the problem with ordering the result by color.

I tried
Criteria criteriaA = session.createCriteria( A.class );
criteriaA.setFetchMode(B.class, FetchMode.join);
criteriaA.addOrder(Order.asc("b.color"));
criteriaA.list();
and get the error message
org.hibernate.QueryException: could not resolve property: b of: a

Then I tried
Criteria criteriaA = session.createCriteria( A.class );
criteriaA.setFetchMode(B.class, FetchMode.join);
criteriaA.createAlias("B", "b");
criteria.addOrder(Order.asc("b.color"));
criteriaA.list();
but createAlias overwrites the fetchMode and sets it to inner join.
Results with undefined color will disappear.

What should I do ?
Can I use critera in this case or will I have to use HQL ?