4.6. Implementing a NamingStrategy

The interface org.hibernate.cfg.NamingStrategy allows you to specify a "naming standard" for database objects and schema elements.

You can provide rules for automatically generating database identifiers from Java identifiers or for processing "logical" column and table names given in the mapping file into "physical" table and column names. This feature helps reduce the verbosity of the mapping document, eliminating repetitive noise (TBL_ prefixes, for example). The default strategy used by Hibernate is quite minimal.

You can specify a different strategy by calling Configuration.setNamingStrategy() before adding mappings:

SessionFactory sf = new Configuration()
    .setNamingStrategy(ImprovedNamingStrategy.INSTANCE)
    .addFile("Item.hbm.xml")
    .addFile("Bid.hbm.xml")
    .buildSessionFactory();

SessionFactory sf = new Configuration()
    .setNamingStrategy(ImprovedNamingStrategy.INSTANCE)
    .addFile("Item.hbm.xml")
    .addFile("Bid.hbm.xml")
    .buildSessionFactory();

org.hibernate.cfg.ImprovedNamingStrategy is a built-in strategy that might be a useful starting point for some applications.