Red Hat Summit Red Hat SummitSupportConsoleDevelopersStart a trialContact

2.2.7. Mapping secondary tables

You can map a single entity bean to several tables using the @SecondaryTable or @SecondaryTables class level annotations. To express that a column is in a particular table, use the table parameter of @Column or @JoinColumn.
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap 
@Entity
@Table(name="MainCat")
@SecondaryTables({ @SecondaryTable(name="Cat1", pkJoinColumns={ @PrimaryKeyJoinColumn(name="cat_id", referencedColumnName="id") ), @SecondaryTable(name="Cat2", uniqueConstraints={@UniqueConstraint(columnNames={"storyPart2"})}) })
public class Cat implements Serializable {

    private Integer id;
    private String name;
    private String storyPart1;
    private String storyPart2;

    @Id @GeneratedValue
    public Integer getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
    
    @Column(table="Cat1")
    public String getStoryPart1() {
        return storyPart1;
    }

    @Column(table="Cat2")
    public String getStoryPart2() {
        return storyPart2;
    }
In this example, name will be in MainCat. storyPart1 will be in Cat1 and storyPart2 will be in Cat2. Cat1 will be joined to MainCat using the cat_id as a foreign key, and Cat2 using id (ie the same column name, the MainCat id column has). Plus a unique constraint on storyPart2 has been set.
Check out the JBoss EJB 3 tutorial or the Hibernate Annotations unit test suite for more examples.
Back to top
Red Hat logoGithubredditYoutubeTwitter

Learn

Try, buy, & sell

Communities

About Red Hat Documentation

We help Red Hat users innovate and achieve their goals with our products and services with content they can trust. Explore our recent updates.

Making open source more inclusive

Red Hat is committed to replacing problematic language in our code, documentation, and web properties. For more details, see the Red Hat Blog.

About Red Hat

We deliver hardened solutions that make it easier for enterprises to work across platforms and environments, from the core datacenter to the network edge.

Theme

© 2025 Red Hat, Inc.