Hibernate version: 3.0.4

I have a class that contains multiple lists each containing the same class. For example:

class Wiget {
... other fields ...
List<String> innerColors;
List<String> outerColors;
}

Clearly, Hibernate needs some way to determine which strings go into which list.

The lists map to a Colors table:

CREATE TABLE colors (
wiget_id INT NOT NULL,
color VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
color_group VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
position INT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(wiget_id, color_group))

wigit_id is the foreign key to the Wiget object (Wiget table);
color is the color string;
color_group is the discriminator as to which list the color should go into;
position is the index in the list for the color string.

What I can't figure out is how to structure the mapping.

I tried the following:

<list name="innerColors" table="colors">
<key>
<column name="wiget_id"/>
<column name="color_group" check="'inner'"/>
</key>
<index column="position"/>
<element type="string" column="color" not-null="true"/>
</list>

Hibernate complains that the key for the list is not a valid foreign key to the Wigets table (the primary key of the Wigits table is just a wiget_id).

If I can only have the wiget_id in the <key> field, then how do I define the mapping so Hibernate knows to use the color_group column as a discriminator? I tried a "where" attribute in <list>, but that only helps with retrieval and not with saves. (I suspect the "check" attribute in my mapping above has the same limitation.)

Seems there must be a way to tell Hibernate to automatically insert the value 'inner' into color_group when saving and use the value 'inner' to discriminate on retrieval.

I can modify the table structure if that would help.

Has anyone solved this problem already?

It seems to me that having multiple lists or sets containing the same class of objects would be a common situation (not just limited to my example of String).

<list name="innerColors" table="colors" where="color_group='inner'">
<key>
<column name="wiget_id"/>
</key>
<index column="position"/>
<element type="string" column="color" not-null="true"/>
</list>

http://www.hibernate.org/hib_docs/v3/re ... ns-mapping

Hi,
I'm having the same problem ... can someone help.
Like ppanec said "where"works with retreival only, I need something like a discriminator which can be automatically inserted/checked through mapping.