16.2.3. Entity Queries

The above queries were all about returning scalar values, basically returning the "raw" values from the resultset. The following shows how to get entity objects from a native sql query via addEntity().

sess.createSQLQuery("SELECT * FROM CATS").addEntity(Cat.class);
sess.createSQLQuery("SELECT ID, NAME, BIRTHDATE FROM CATS").addEntity(Cat.class);

This query specified:

Assuming that Cat is mapped as a class with the columns ID, NAME and BIRTHDATE the above queries will both return a List where each element is a Cat entity.

If the entity is mapped with a many-to-one to another entity it is required to also return this when performing the native query, otherwise a database specific "column not found" error will occur. The additional columns will automatically be returned when using the * notation, but we prefer to be explicit as in the following example for a many-to-one to a Dog:

sess.createSQLQuery("SELECT ID, NAME, BIRTHDATE, DOG_ID FROM CATS").addEntity(Cat.class);

This will allow cat.getDog() to function properly.