Hibernate version: 2.1

Name and version of the database you are using: MS SQL Server with Navision tables

I am confronted with a rather unusual legacy database layout, where table and column names contain Umlauts, blanks and everything evil (i.e. "[Alle Bonitätsdaten].[KundenNr. des Antragstellers]"). The database layout is a fact that I can't change.
Those tables are generated by Navision, a CRM product that is now owned by Microsoft.
Mapping the table and column names is no problem, since I can easily escape them with square brackets.

My first question is: is there any generic support for escaping *ALL* column and table names in Hibernate. Currently I have to do this by hand for hundreds of mapped columns, which is not very amusing.

But the real problem is that some tables are duplicated in the database. This is a feature of MS SQL Server (?) that can be used to isolate tables between mandators. The names of these tables are prefixed with the mandator's name and a dollar sign (mandator$table).

I.e.:
customer1$orders
customer2$orders
...

The tables have absolutely the same structure, but from JDBC's the point of view different table names.

So my second question is: how could I possibly map these tables in Hibernate without having separate POJOs for every table (which would force me to apply code changes when a new mandator arrives) ?
I just want a union over all tables. Is it possible to map the same object to different tables or should I try a view on a union of all these tables (the good thing is: i only have to read the tables) ?

Take a look at NamingStrategy, I _think_ you can escape there.

Also you can use schema/catalog for your $ problem I think

What exactly do you mean with 'schema/catalog' ?

Of course I could set the default schema name to some mandator but I need *ALL* those similiar tables mapped in the same session. Can this be done with setting the schema ?

You can also set the schema on every class individually.

Is it possible to set the schema for a class and a single request ? Otherwise I would have to create a specific bean for every customer and map it to another schema. This will lead to maintenance nightmare.

I know the client's name at the time when I have to query the database, so I would like to decide on the schema of a mapped class at runtime.

I.e. something like:
if (customer_name.equals("C1")) {
session.<setSchemaForBean>(AccountBean.class, "pdo.customer1$");
} else if (customer_name.equals("C2")) {
session.<setSchemaForBean>(AccountBean.class, "pdo.customer2$");
}

Is something like that possible ?