Hibernate version: 3.2.0

I've noticed that SQLQueryImpl.executeUpdate() doesn't honour the query's flushmode by calling before() and after() around the main body of the method. It does honour flushmode for list(), scroll() etc. This differs from QueryImpl.executeUpdate(), though I can't see any obvious reason why. Is this deliberate (and if so, why), or is it just an oversight?

I guess it's just related to the default strategy. For example, with FlushMode.AUTO, list() is known to be called after a flush() has been done. This helps you working on a good dataset, if some data are not in the db yey. Though, when updating, I guess Hibernate does not do any automatic flush(), so you have to call flush() by yourself before calling executeUpdate() if needed.