Hibernate custom UserType isn't working

Question

I've created a UserType (see below) to handle a situation in our mySQL database where we've been saving null dates as 0000-00-00 00:00:00.

When I try and persist my entity with a null for dispDT (see below) it generates this exception: "javax.persistence.PersistenceException: org.hibernate.PropertyValueException: not-null property references a null or transient value: myEntity.dispDt"

By setting a breakpoint in every method in MySQLTimeStampUserType I can see it calls the deepCopy method and never calls the nullSafeSet method. I thought the whole point of the nuyllSafeSet method was to allow me to manipulate the value before persisting it. What am I doing wrong?

Entity Annotations

@Basic(optional = false)
@Column(name = "disp_dt")
@Type(type = "mypackage.MySQLTimeStampUserType")
//    @Temporal(TemporalType.TIMESTAMP)
private Date dispDt;

User Type class

public class MySQLTimeStampUserType implements UserType {

private static final int[] SQL_TYPES = {Types.TIMESTAMP};

public int[] sqlTypes() {
    return SQL_TYPES;
}

public Class returnedClass() {
    return Date.class;
}

public boolean equals(Object x, Object y) throws HibernateException {
    if (x == y) {
        return true;
    } else if (x == null || y == null) {
        return false;
    } else {
        return x.equals(y);
    }

}

public int hashCode(Object arg0) throws HibernateException {
    throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not supported yet.");
}

public Object nullSafeGet(ResultSet resultSet, String[] names, Object owner) throws HibernateException, SQLException {
    // if the date is 0000-00-00 00:00:00 return null, else return the timestamp
    Date result = null;
    if (!resultSet.wasNull()) {
        if (!resultSet.getString(names[0]).equals("0000-00-00 00:00:00")) {
            result = resultSet.getDate(names[0]);
        }
    }
    return result;
}

public void nullSafeSet(PreparedStatement statement, Object value, int index) throws HibernateException, SQLException {
    // if the date is null set the value to "0000-00-00 00:00:00" else save the timestamp
    if (value == null) {
        statement.setString(index, "0000-00-00 00:00:00");
    } else {
        statement.setTimestamp(index,(Timestamp) value);
    }

}

public Object deepCopy(Object value) throws HibernateException {
    return value;
}

public boolean isMutable() {
    return false;
}

public Serializable disassemble(Object value) throws HibernateException {
    throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not supported yet.");
}

public Object assemble(Serializable cached, Object owner) throws HibernateException {
    throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not supported yet.");
}

public Object replace(Object original, Object target, Object owner) throws HibernateException {
    return original;
}
}

Answer 1

These nuances are quite well discussed here: http://blog.xebia.com/2009/11/09/understanding-and-writing-hibernate-user-types/