Simple question but can't seem to find answers anywhere. If I have a simple person object with a personType object associated one-to-one and using lazy fetching strategy. Is there a way I can retrieve the personType identifier without fetching the personType object first? Obviously hibernate has the identifier because it needs it to later initialize the lazy object, so I take it there should way of getting to it but can't seem to find how. Any help would be appreciated.

obj.getId() .... accessing the id property of an ojbect doesnt initialize it.

if you have a session there should also be a getIdentifier(o) that does the same, but with a dependency to hibernate.

Here's a link to the faq:

http://hibernate.org/118.html#A22

How can I retrieve the identifier of an associated object, without fetching the association?

Just do it! The following code does not result in any SELECT statement, even if the item association is lazy.

Long itemId = bid.getItem().getId();

I just realized I asked the wrong question. What I am interested is the opposite. If I create a new Person object, can I set the pesonType identifier if I already know it, without first having to query for a personType object and then doing setPersonType() ?

A oneliner ,)

new Person().setPersonType((PersonType)session.load(PersonType.class, personTypeId));


its sesson.load that does the magic....it does not hit the db, and return a proxy
session.get hits the db and return a solid object.