Padding spaces using Oracle CHAR field

finbar · **Joined:** Mon Feb 13, 2006 6:42 am **Posts:** 5

Hi - I'm using Oracle 10g, Hibernate 2.1 and Spring framework 1.15, and have a currency table with a currency column of CHAR(3).

My mapping file maps this field as a String, length 3.

<property name="description" type="java.lang.String"
access="field"
column="CURRENCY_TYPE_CODE" length="3"
not-null="true" />

In my code, I am finding the currency using the find method:

return getHibernateTemplate().find("from CurrencyType ct where ct.description = ?", description);

This returns a list of CurrencyType objects, however, the Currency code field always seems to be padded to 12 chars - e.g. USD with 9 trailing spaces

I have tried changing the field to a VARCHAR2, which works fine, however for efficiency, we would prefer to use CHAR. Am I missing something in my mapping, or will this not actually work with a CHAR data type?

Thanks

ramnath · **Posted:** Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:30 am

Hi,

The space are appended in the DB. Hibernate doesnt do anything to it.

finbar · **Joined:** Mon Feb 13, 2006 6:42 am **Posts:** 5

Hi - Could you explain this in more detail please?

The column itself is CHAR(3), so I would expect only 3 characters to be returned.

Thanks

finbar · **Joined:** Mon Feb 13, 2006 6:42 am **Posts:** 5

Someone mentioned this might be something to do with Unicode characters - can anyone offer any more insight ? Thanks

blanshlu · **Joined:** Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:57 pm **Posts:** 1

Check out http://forum.hibernate.org/viewtopic.php?t=928294, which explains the problem and offers a user type mapping to solve it.

hibernate_user · **Joined:** Mon May 22, 2006 2:30 pm **Posts:** 74

I think the previous replies have overlooked his point about getting a string of length 12 back for a column defined and mapped with a length of 3. There is something else going on here. He is not simply asking about padding that is applied for fixed length fields.

Have you double-checked to make sure the table definition is actually what you think it is? This behaviour doesn't make sense.