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Hibernate version: 3.0.5

Name and version of the database you are using: postgreSQL 8.1

I am looking at hibernate to do a billing/transaction program. It looks great so far, but I am confused as to how to tell hibernate (postgreSQL) to encrypt entries. I would need this for storing credit card numbers, names, etc.

Is there some easy way to do this that I have just missed when going through the documentation?

Thanks.

Not usre it belong to the app layer, but you can write a UserType doing the job

You can do this easily outside Hibernate. In a previous Spring/Hibernate project, I used a one way encryption method to store encrypted passwords in the database.

So:
1. encrypt the field
2. store the encrypted field (with the other data)

if you need to match data with the encrypted data you just :
1. encrypt the field to be matched,
2. get the (encrypted) field from the database
3. compare both encrypted values.

this works fine if you do not need the original data after storing them in the database (just for matching purposes). I used the same encryption Unix uses to store passwords (Java code can be found for free - ask me if you need help).

If you do need the original (decrypted) data after storing them in the database, you need an encryption algorithm that works 2 ways (so you can decrypt too). Google will help you get this code also...

This is not really a Hibernate solution but it will do the job without too much effort (took me a few hours) to build.

good luck,
erik