I'm using MSSQL 2005 and Hibernate 3.1.3

I have several tables that I would like to be insert-only. By that I mean that I would like to be able to retrieve data from the tables (a nested entity tree) but when a change is made that rather than update the rows new inserts should be done.

What is the best way to do this?

Thanks in advance!

Put mutable="false" in the class element of the mapping. This prevents updates. You can also put update="false" on all the properties, etc.

Everything else will have to be done in business logic. For example, you could have a findForUpdate method that finds the appropriate entity and creates a new transient object from it. When the new object is saved, you'll get an insert. Alternatively, you could have a save method that creates the new object. If the object is simple and has no associations (or if you hydrate everything in advance), you could evict the object from the session, set the ID to the unsaved value (usually null), and save it again.

It seems that you want to have some kind of history of your entities? Have a look at Envers, which will also be a part of hibernate core in the next hibernate release.

double post.

double post again, don't know why...