I've got a situation where I'd like to store objects of different types (strings, numbers, dates, booleans, etc) in the same table, with a single insert/retrieval point ("getValue()?) on the same mapped class.

I don't really want to use a byte array, since I'd prefer if these values, once stored in the database, were human readable (unless it's a complex object of some sort).

Any recommendations on going about doing this?

If you want to store all those types in one table (and presumably in one field), then the only way I can think of is to store them in a string column. However, string/varchar is not very efficient when it comes to storing anything that isn't a string.

A different option would be to use inheritance, and map different types to different tables. Perhaps a parent class StoredObject, with method "Object getValue()". Subclasses can override getValue(). Consider a subclass StoredBoolean, with method "Boolean getValue()".

Using this approach, you could retrieve a list of StoredObjects, and each call of getValue() would return the type used by the method in the subclass. If this sounds like a good option for you, read up on Hibernate's inheritance capabilities.