I have a legacy database which doesn't keep referential integrity: there are some columns which are "almost" a FK: they are supposed to reference another table row, but it's not always true (sometimes it has a value but referenced row doesn't exist).

In this case Hibernate fails (org.hibernate.ObjectNotFoundException: No row with the given identifier exists). Is there any way I can handle this? I could map the column as a simple property instead of a relationship, but I want to be able to go through the relationship when it's ok.

Couldn't you 'clean up' the data first? What does it mean then if a column has a value AND the referenced row does not exist?

That aside - Hibernate allows you to customize the SQL used for loading entities and collections. See for example http://www.hibernate.org/hib_docs/v3/reference/en/html_single/#querysql-load. The book Java Persistence with Hibernate covers this topic in more detail and gives a lot of other valuable tips when working with legacy databases.

Personally, I would try to investigate first the option of a database cleanup or maybe even schema modification.

Good luck :)

--Hardy

I agree you, correcting the data IS the RIGHT option, but I'm afraid it's not possible. This is a legal issue, dealing with application testing, sensible information... hard to explain...

I'll try the custom SQL you suggest. Thanks!