How to map an entity field whose name is a reserved word in JPA

Question

@Column(name="open")

Using sqlserver dialect with hibernate.

[SchemaUpdate] Unsuccessful: create table auth_session (id numeric(19,0) identity not null, active tinyint null, creation_date datetime not null, last_modified datetime not null, maxidle int null, maxlive int null, open tinyint null, sessionid varchar(255) not null, user_id numeric(19,0) not null, primary key (id), unique (sessionid))
[SchemaUpdate] Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'open'.

I would have expected hibernate to use quoted identifier when creating the table.

Any ideas on how to handle this... other than renaming the field?

Answer 1

With Hibernate as JPA 1.0 provider, you can escape a reserved keyword by enclosing it within backticks:

@Column(name="`open`")

This is the syntax inherited from Hiberate Core:

5.4. SQL quoted identifiers

You can force Hibernate to quote an identifier in the generated SQL by enclosing the table or column name in backticks in the mapping document. Hibernate will use the correct quotation style for the SQL Dialect. This is usually double quotes, but the SQL Server uses brackets and MySQL uses backticks.

<class name="LineItem" table="`Line Item`">
    <id name="id" column="`Item Id`"/><generator class="assigned"/></id>
    <property name="itemNumber" column="`Item #`"/>
    ...
</class>

In JPA 2.0, the syntax is standardized and becomes:

@Column(name="\"open\"")

References

• Hibernate reference guide
  • 5.4. SQL quoted identifiers
• JPA 2.0 specification
  • 2.13 Naming of Database Objects

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