Basically, i need to find out whether there is real database sql statement executed when i do a save/update.

I tried to use pre-update event listener, but this interface is called upon session.update(), even no real sql statement is issued to the database.

So the question is, in hibernate how to find out whether there are sql statments are send over jdbc to the database.

If you need to know only for debugging purposes you can use http://www.p6spy.com/ which helps a lot understanding what
database actions hibernate causes.

No, this is not only for debuggin purpose, actually i knew there was no update statement sent to database(turned on hibernate.show_sql), but the hibernate event related to update was still fired.

ok, PostEventListener serves this purpose.