Hello,

Is there a way to group objects by a pre-defined order? Here's an example of what I want to do:

I have an "Document" object with a "type" attribute. I want to retrieve a collection of "Document" objects that are sorted by "type" in the following order: first "Word", secondly "Excel", lastly "PowerPoint".

Thanks.

Thomas

Not in a query. You will have to sort the collection yourself with your own comparator. If the collection is an association you can use the sort attribute in the Hibernate mapping.

Is it what you want

Or you could make Type a reference to a record in another table, where that record contains a sort order. Map the Type as an association and use something like

The funy thing is, W(ord), E(xcel), P(owerpoint) is not an alphabetical order, so you won't be able to sort it that way in the query not even with custom SQL. hgilde's suggestion is not that bad, too. Might be a good case for a <component> probably, too.