Hibernate generator Element

In this tutorial you will learn about the hibernate's generator element , which is used to auto generate the primary key value.

Hibernate generator Element

Hibernate <generator> Element

In this tutorial you will learn about the hibernate's <generator> element , which is used to auto generate the primary key value.

The <generator> tag is an optional child element of the element <id>. In <generator> a class name is to be assigned using which unique identifier is generated for the new record at the time of new record is saved or inserted into table. For example : 

<class name="roseindia.Employee" table="employee">
<id name="empId" type="long" column="Id" >
<generator class="assigned"/>
</id>

A simple interface org.hibernate.id.IdentifierGenerator is implemented by all generators. Hibernate provides a various built-in implementations some of them built-in generators are as follows :

shortcut name for the built-in generators Description
increment For the type long, short or int identifiers are generated these
identifiers will not be remain unique if any other process inserts
data into the same table. It should not used in the
clustered environment.
identity In DB2, MySQL, MS SQL Server, Sybase and
HypersonicSQL an identity column is supported. The returned
type of an identifier may be long, short or int.
sequence In DB2, MySQL, MS SQL Server, Sybase and
HypersonicSQL an identity column is supported. The returned
type of an identifier may be long, short or int.
assigned This generator lets to assign an identifier to the object by
application before calling the save(). A default strategy if
generator element is not specified.
select This generator retrieves a primary key and primary key value
by selecting the row by some unique key that are
assigned by a database trigger
foreign This generator uses the identifier of another associated object.
Commonly used in conjunction with a primary key association.
sequence-identity Only supported by Oracle 10g drivers. It is a specialized
sequence generation strategy. For the actual value generation
it uses a database sequence.

NOTE  : If you put <generator class="native"/>, Hibernate automatically choose between identity, sequence or hilo algorithm to auto generate the primary key, by calculating the capabilities of the used database.

EXAMPLE

Given below the configuration XML file of table which is involved in one-to-one mapping, whose id/primary key will auto-generate using <generator> tag :

Worker.hbm.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd">

<hibernate-mapping package="net.roseindia">

<class name="Worker" table="worker">
<id name="workerId" column="worker_id">
<generator class="native" />
</id>
<one-to-one name="workerDetail" class="net.roseindia.WorkerDetail"
cascade="save-update"></one-to-one>

<property name="firstname" column="firstname" />
<property name="lastname" column="lastname" />
<property name="birthDate" type="date" column="birth_date" />
<property name="cellphone" column="cell_phone" />

</class>
</hibernate-mapping>

Here, we are using  <generator class="native"/>, means Hibernate automatically choose between identity, sequence or hilo algorithm to auto generate the primary key, by calculating the capabilities of the used database.

WorkerDetail.hbm.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd">

<hibernate-mapping package="net.roseindia">

<class name="WorkerDetail" table="workerdetail">

<id name="workerId" type="java.lang.Long">
<column name="worker_id" />
<generator class="foreign">
<param name="property">worker</param>
</generator>
</id>
<one-to-one name="worker" class="net.roseindia.Worker"
constrained="true"></one-to-one>

<property name="street" column="street" />
<property name="city" column="city" />
<property name="state" column="state" />
<property name="country" column="country" />
</class>

</hibernate-mapping>

In the above XML, we are using <generator class="foreign">, means this generator uses the identifier of another associated object(worker table).

For complete example, click here

Tutorials

  1. Introduction To Hibernate 4.0
  2. Complete Hibernate 4.0 Tutorial
  3. Hibernate 4 Tutorial
  4. What's New In Hibernate 4.0 release
  5. Hibernate Architecture
  6. Download Hibernate 4
  7. Hibernate create POJO classes
  8. Hibernate Configuration File
  9. First Hibernate Application
  10. First Hibernate 4 Example with Eclipse
  11. Hibernate 4 Supported Databases List
  12. Hibernate generator Element
  13. Hibernate 4 Annotations
  14. Hibernate 4 Annotation Example
  15. Hibernate 4 One to One Mapping using Annotation
  16. Hibernate 4 One to Many mapping using Annotation
  17. Hibernate One to One Mapping using XML
  18. Hibernate 4 One to Many mapping using XML
  19. Hibernate 4 Many to Many Mapping using Annotation
  20. Hibernate 4 Many to Many Mapping using Xml
  21. Hibernate update Method
  22. Hibernate persist Method
  23. Hibernate saveOrUpdate Method
  24. Hibernate SELECT Clause
  25. Hibernate FROM Clause
  26. Hibernate One to Many Bi-directional Mapping
  27. Hibernate WHERE Clause
  28. Hibernate ORDER BY Clause
  29. Introduction To Hibernate Query Language (HQL)
  30. Hibernate One to One Bi-directional Mapping
  31. Hibernate One to Many Indexed Mapping
  32. Hibernate One to many XML Mapping bag example
  33. Hibernate One to Many XML Mapping list Example
  34. Hibernate One to many XML mapping array Example
  35. Hibernate One to Many Self Join using Annotations
  36. Hibernate GROUP BY Clause
  37. Hibernate Many to Many Self Join using Annotations
  38. Hibernate update Query
  39. Hibernate delete Query
  40. Hibernate insert Query