Hibernate @Enumerated mapping

saravana_pc · **Joined:** Sun Mar 27, 2011 1:26 pm **Posts:** 2

(Reposting this as I had earlier posted in the wrong section)

Hibernate provides @Enumerated annotation which supports two types of Enum mapping either using ORDINAL or STRING. When we map using EnumType.STRING, it takes the "name" of the Enum and not the toString() representation of the Enum. This is a problem in scenarios where the database column consists of only one character. For example, I have the following Enum:

Code:

public enum Status{
      OPEN{
       @Override
       public String toString(){
         return "O";}
       },
    
      WAITLIST{
       @Override
       public String toString(){
         return "W";}
       },
    
      COMPLETE{
       @Override
       public String toString(){
         return "C";}
       }
    
    }

When I persist the enum Status.OPEN using @Enumerated(EnumType.STRING), the value that Hibernate tries to store in the database is OPEN. However, my database column consists only one column and hence it throws exception.

One way to overcome this issue is to change the Enum type to hold single characters (like STATUS.O, STATUS.W instead of STATUS.OPEN, STATUS.WAITLIST). However, this reduces readability. Any suggestions to preserve the readability as well as mapping the Enum to a single character column?

Thanks.

sanne.grinovero · **Posted:** Sun Mar 27, 2011 6:15 pm

You could create a CustomType. With CustomTypes you can completely control how the object is created from Database, and how it is persisted.