hi there this is a nubiee question....

I was reading through the HIA book and on page 80 and have two questions , was hoping if you could shed some light on it

1. U describe that is a better stragetry to access attributes of a class via getter and setter methods.

Then what is the beneift of using access= "field" in the property tag ? Does it mean that i dont have to create getter and setter methods ?
When it is benefical to do this ?

2. In caveatemptor-0.9.5 ,in item.hbm.xml for example you have defined
.....
<!-- Name of the item is immutable. -->
<property name="name"
type="string"
column="NAME"
length="255"
not-null="true"
update="false"
access="org.hibernate.auction.persistence.DirectSetAccessor"/>

what is the benefit of the DirectSetAccessor ? Because in Item.java u do create a getter and setter method for the name attribute.

Thank you
-reeve

1. You can do whatever you like best, field or property method access.

2. Maybe a typo, but I don't really care much. See 1.

I've used my own accessor to apply a "mixed" strategy: It sets the field directly, but reads the value through a property accessor method. This is useful for immutable properties where no setter method should be exposed and you don't want to have a useless private setter.

thank you Christian for your prompt reply