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How to generate Hibernate mapping files & annotation with Hibernate Tools

In this article, we show you how to use Hibernate / JBoss Tools to generate Hibernate mapping files (hbm) and annotation code from database automatically.

Tools in this article

  1. Eclipse v3.6 (Helios)
  2. JBoss / Hibernate Tools v3.2
  3. Oracle 11g
  4. JDK 1.6
Note
Before proceed, please Install Hibernate / JBoss Tools in Eclipse IDE.

1. Hibernate Perspective

Open your “Hibernate Perspective“. In Eclipse IDE, select “Windows” >> “Open Perspective” >> “Others…” , choose “Hibernate“.

2. New Hibernate Configuration

In Hibernate Perspective, right click and select “Add Configuration…

In “Edit Configuration” dialog box,

  1. In “Project” box, click on the “Browse..” button to select your project.
  2. In “Database Connection” box, click “New..” button to create your database settings.
  3. In “Configuration File” box, click “Setup” button to create a new or use existing “Hibernate configuration file”, hibernate.cfg.xml.
Eclipse Hibernate Tools

See your list of your tables in “Hibernate Perspective“.

Eclipse Hibernate Tools

Sample of “hibernate.cfg.xml“, connect to Oracle 11g database.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-configuration>
<session-factory>
  <property name="hibernate.connection.driver_class">oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver</property>
  <property name="hibernate.connection.url">jdbc:oracle:thin:@127.0.0.1:1521:MKYONG</property>
  <property name="hibernate.connection.username">mkyong</property>
  <property name="hibernate.connection.password">password</property>
  <property name="hibernate.dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle10gDialect</property>
  <property name="hibernate.default_schema">MKYONG</property>
 </session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>

3. Hibernate Code Generation

Now, you are ready to generate the Hibernate mapping files and annotation codes.

– In “Hibernate Perspective”, click “Hibernate code generation” icon (see below figure) and select “Hibernate Code Generation Configuration”

Hibernate Code Generation

– Create a new configuration, select your “console configuration” (configured in step 2), puts your “Output directory” and checked option “Reverse engineer from JDBC Connection“.

Hibernate Code Generation

– In “Exporter” tab, select what you want to generate, Model , mapping file (hbm) , DAO, annotation code and etc.

Hibernate Code Generation

See result

Hibernate Code Generation
Note
The generated Hibernate mapping file and annotations code are very clean, standard and easy to modify. Try explore more features.

About Author

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Founder of Mkyong.com, love Java and open source stuff. Follow him on Twitter. If you like my tutorials, consider make a donation to these charities.

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saideep puppala
7 years ago

Thank so much…
i am able to generate pojo classes but, in that pojo classes annotations are not generating

joelmmx
4 years ago

I found in stackoverflow the problem, you cannot use 5.4 or 5.3 hibernate version. Try to use 5.2 version hibernate in the comebox when you create console hibernate configuration

Hicham
6 years ago

I had also this problem.
To solve it, check the “Generate EJB3 annotations” in the “Exporter” tab, in the Hibernate code generation window.

rahul bansal
4 years ago
Reply to  Hicham

After cheking also facing same issue

joelmmx
4 years ago
Reply to  rahul bansal

The same for me. The annotation are not coming in the java File. I don’t know what is wrong

kei
4 years ago

When run, only hibernate.cfg.xml is generated, no POJO, mapping xml is generated.

kei
4 years ago

Configuration placed outside CLASSPATH will not be available at run-time
what does this mean?

kei
4 years ago

In Hibernate Perspective, right click and select “Add Configuration…”
new a java project and right click that project? but not “Add Configuration…”?

Prasad G
5 years ago

Hi Its not working with MS SQL server. Can anybody help me to do it on sql server

jerome
5 years ago

Hi, do you know why class is generated without annotation : “@Entity”, “@colums, etc…” ? thank you

5 years ago

Hey, did u face any unusual amount of time while generating entities from oracle db?

Omar
6 years ago

Hola, Cuando intento realizar la conexión muestra el siguiente mensaje: “org.hibernate.eclipse.console
Error
Mon Feb 26 18:13:18 CST 2018
org.jboss.tools.hibernate.runtime.spi.HibernateException: org.hibernate.mapping.Column(DUMMY) already exists in SYS.DUAL

org.jboss.tools.hibernate.runtime.spi.HibernateException: org.hibernate.mapping.Column(DUMMY) already exists in SYS.DUAL
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.workbench.LazyDatabaseSchemaWorkbenchAdapter$2.execute(LazyDatabaseSchemaWorkbenchAdapter.java:141)
at org.hibernate.console.execution.DefaultExecutionContext.execute(DefaultExecutionContext.java:63)
at org.hibernate.console.ConsoleConfiguration.execute(ConsoleConfiguration.java:107)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.workbench.LazyDatabaseSchemaWorkbenchAdapter.readDatabaseSchema(LazyDatabaseSchemaWorkbenchAdapter.java:124)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.workbench.LazyDatabaseSchemaWorkbenchAdapter.getChildren(LazyDatabaseSchemaWorkbenchAdapter.java:64)
at org.hibernate.eclipse.console.workbench.BasicWorkbenchAdapter.fetchDeferredChildren(BasicWorkbenchAdapter.java:104)
at org.eclipse.ui.progress.DeferredTreeContentManager$1.run(DeferredTreeContentManager.java:232)
at org.eclipse.core.internal.jobs.Worker.run(Worker.java:56)”

Alguien me puede ayudar.

Saludos.

Omar
6 years ago
Reply to  Omar

Lo pude resolver utilizando una versión de Hibernate inferior. Saludos!!

Alina Alam
7 years ago

FIX: FETCHING CHILDREN FROM DATABASE DOESN’T RETURN ANY TABLES

There are a lot of people who are complaining about not getting any tables even when hibernate doesn’t generate any error!
The first time I followed this tutorial, everything worked perfectly and I didn’t have to do anything different. Later after a month, when I started working on another project, i got this result even though i was doing everything the same way I had done before (eclipse was just being eclipse)

So, solution:
1) In the generated hibernate.cfg.xml, change:
dbname to
DBNAME

**you’ll have to write your default schema in UPPERCASE. This will work well if you’re using Oracle

2) This solution is for MySQL5 since the first one didn’t work for me
dbname to
dbname

**you’ll have to change the property from default_schema to default_catalog

Paul Newell
7 years ago

Thank you Mkyong for your examples – of much help and expedite the dev process.

luke
7 years ago

It really helped me, thanks a lot !

Savani
8 years ago

I don’t want to create .hbm files any more, I want all model classes with annotations on that. How we can do that? Please guide soonest possible.

Rahul Wagh
8 years ago

Nice article on the Hibernate setup.

For setting hibernate without using Hibernate eclipse tool you can refer to following link.

This is just alternate if you do not have the Hibernate eclipse tool with you…

http://techpost360.blogspot.in/2015/07/configuring-hibernate-with-java.html

Just post your comments

Geoffrey Stanley
8 years ago

How would you configure your reverse engineering to let hibernate know what you “CREATED_DATE” column would be automatically generated by the database. Such as in postgresql a column that has a default value of current_timestamp?

Er. JK Jha
8 years ago

good.. worked for me smoothly

Shailendra Gatade
8 years ago

MkYong,

Using Eclipse and JBoss Hibernate tools. When I generate the POJO’s from DB (Rev. Engg), I am getting basic data types instead of Entity.

e.g. It generates the following
private Integer application;
instead of
private Application application;

All the required FK’s are in place, am using Java 5 Syntax. Note: I am also not able to see these relations in the Hibernate Configurations view.

Can you please advise???

Thanks and regards,

Shailendra

rohith
9 years ago

Hi.. thank you very much for this article.. it helped me a lot..

If anyone out there is using PostgreSQL and not seeing the class files generated, here is a tip.. convert your table names into all lower case. All my tables names were in upper case and when I ran it, no class files were being generated. It drove me crazy for a while and with some dumb luck, I finally realized that PostgreSQLHibernate tools requires the table names to be in lowercase.

Marcos Motta
9 years ago

Hello,

I’m trying to do this tutorial using Oracle 10g XE and SQL Server 2008, but I don’t get the list of tables from my database, I’m getting from all databases. When I tried with SQL Server 2008 I’m getting tree databases on Hibernate Configurations:

SQL Server – Hibernate
Configuration
Session Factory
Database
CDP.Information_Schema
CDP.dbo
CDP.sys

And this message when I execute the “Hibernate Code Generation Configuration…” > Run:

org.hibernate.cfg.JDBCBinderException: Duplicate class name ‘CheckConstraints’ generated for ‘org.hibernate.mapping.Table(CDP.sys.check_constraints)’. Same name where generated for ‘org.hibernate.mapping.Table(CDP.sys.check_constraints)’

Duplicate class name ‘CheckConstraints’ generated for ‘org.hibernate.mapping.Table(CDP.sys.check_constraints)’. Same name where generated for ‘org.hibernate.mapping.Table(CDP.sys.check_constraints)’

My question is “How do I get only the main database: “CDP.dbo” ?

Thank you!

altug
6 years ago
Reply to  Marcos Motta

how can u fix this program i have same

oyoyo
9 years ago

Great tutorial. Thank you!

Alok
10 years ago

how can we change target JDK for hibernate tool manually (without using hibernate perspective window)?

Mahantesh
10 years ago

when i tried to generate annotations using reverse engineering from JDBC connection,It just keep saying “Fetching children from Database” till 57%,.it doesn’t progress further.
Can you figure out what is going wrong ?I did all the steps you mentioned but at generation part it is struck!

Vamshi Banda
8 years ago
Reply to  Mahantesh

did you get solution for your issue? i am using Mysql and I am getting the same error

Hasan
10 years ago

Hi,
I have a database in mssql. One of this tables is “dbo.city” and the other one is “dbo._city”. I try to generate classes but i have a duplication problem. I think it’s about name strategy.
“dbo.city” and “dbo._city” generated with same class name.
Can you help me?
Thanks

Yusuf
10 years ago

how to configure db setting? i want to use postgresql, how i can add postgresql database driver?

DrakoFire
10 years ago

Hi mkyong, nice tutorial! good job, I have a question, if I have my tables with the prefix “namewebapp_” in my database, but the Hibernate Tools generates NamewebappAnybean (obviously), for example: I have a table with name “namewebapp_customers”, the Hibernate Tools generates my JavaBeans with the NamewebappCustomers class name , but I want the name for my JavaBean be only Customers, Is there any configuration to do this?

Regards!

shivarul
11 years ago

Exception in thread “main” java.lang.Error: Unresolved compilation problem:
The method getCurrentSession() is undefined for the type SessionFactory

at com.person.testperson.main(testperson.java:18)

getting this error wht to do tel me 🙂

regards
shivarul

mintu
11 years ago

how i can set perspective for hibernate
because that not showing hibernate code generation configuration in my eclipse
thanks

vj
11 years ago

i followed the steps you said, but while trying to generate mapping files and pojo classses it is throwing an exception org.hibernate.cfg.jdbcbinder Exception and it says Duplicate class name ‘Syscatalog’ generated for ‘org.hibernate.mapping.Table(SYS.SYSCATALOG_)’. Same name where generated for org.hibernate.mapping.Table(SYS.SYSCATALOG_)

Freddie
11 years ago
Reply to  vj

I have the same problem, any idea?

Akin
11 years ago
Reply to  vj

did you get a fix?

Radek
11 years ago

Hi,

I am following this tutorial but the Hibernate Configuration does not open the table list in the Database item and no error is appear in console. I have tried connect to database with Database Development persitance in Eclipse and it works with my configuration and I have got the list of tables. I am using postgresql driver and create simple Java Project. Do have some advice?

kaanchanha
11 years ago

very much explanatory . thanks a lot !!!

mohsin azeem
11 years ago

hey mkyong i like your web so much i also like your way of solving a problem… greate thumbs up!!
my Question is that.
1. if i have added new table to DB how can i create pojo class for single table ? by hibernate tool
2. if i change any column’s property or add new column to table how can i change it in POJO class automatically
THANKS 🙂