11.3.3. Detached objects and automatic versioning

Each interaction with the persistent store occurs in a new Session. However, the same persistent instances are reused for each interaction with the database. The application manipulates the state of detached instances originally loaded in another Session and then reattaches them using Session.update(), Session.saveOrUpdate(), or Session.merge().

// foo is an instance loaded by a previous Session
foo.setProperty("bar");
session = factory.openSession();
Transaction t = session.beginTransaction();
session.saveOrUpdate(foo); // Use merge() if "foo" might have been loaded already
t.commit();
session.close();

Again, Hibernate will check instance versions during flush, throwing an exception if conflicting updates occurred.

You can also call lock() instead of update(), and use LockMode.READ (performing a version check and bypassing all caches) if you are sure that the object has not been modified.