I want to map a many-to-one relationship as being the discriminator in an inheritance structure.

So basically:

employee_type(int) references EMPLOYEE_TYPE(table),employee_type(id),employee_type_name(string).

So I want to reference the string value in the EMPLOYEE_TYPE table.

<discriminator> only appears to have a column attribute for referencing a single value. Is there a way to get it to reference a many to one relationship resolution of a value.

Cheers in advance.

You can do this by using formula in the discriminator.

<discriminator formula="(select et.employee_type_name from EMPLOYEE_TYPE et where et.employee_type=employee_type)" type="java.lang.String" />

Then you can have an additional many-to-one field to EmployeeType using the employee_type column. And then it would be ur responsibility to set a proper EmployeeType in that field.