After I start a session with my database using sessionFactory, what is the proper way to issue an alter session command against the database?

Specifically, I am trying to change the time zone that the session is using on the fly. If I was doing this against Oracle through a regular query tool like TOAD, I would connect to the database, and then run the command:

alter session set TIME_ZONE='-03:00';


So how do I do that through hibernate?

Note: I realize this may be a simple question, but I have searched through the documentation over and over and I just keep missing it. Please end my confusion and my fruitless searching. Thank you!

The best way to do this is typically through your data source. Most (Apache DBCP, JBoss, probably others) offer a setting for "new connection SQL" or similar. A way to run SQL on every new connection that is opened.

Failing that, you can always subclass ConnectionProvider and add a little behavior to getConnection(). ConnectionProvider is pluggable via programmatic or XML configuration.

Thanks for your advice. We are using JBoss for this application and will slide this little piece of code in there. So this will work nicely for us.

Not sure which recommendation you're talking about, but if you are using JBoss, you need only configure a <new-connection-sql> element in your DataSource descriptor. No code required!