Hi,

I am using Hibernate 3.1.3 .

In our Oracle 10g legacy database there is an existing VERSION column which is used to implement optimistic locking for existing (non-hibernate) front-end application. This column is inserted/updated by a trigger.

The column stores ASCII characters and whenever the trigger updates the column value, it converts the CHAR value to ASCII code and increments it by 1 or sets the value to 0 if the current ASCII value = Max ASCII code.

Why the CHAR(1) database type was originally used for the VERSION column? Because it takes only one byte in a table row.


I would like to utilise this this column for an optimistic locking in hibernate application. However, hibernate does not support neither string versions nor formula based versions where I could convert ASCII character to numeric ASCII code like in the example below.



Is there any way to make hibernate to accept this column and not change the type of the VERSION column to numeric type in the database?

Thanks in advance,
Anton