There are a number of other properties that control the behaviour of Hibernate at runtime. All are optional and have reasonable default values.
Warning: some of these properties are "system-level" only. System-level properties can be set only via java -Dproperty=value or hibernate.properties. They may not be set by the other techniques described above.
Property name
Purpose
hibernate.dialect
The classname of a Hibernate Dialect which allows Hibernate to generate SQL optimized for a particular relational database.
eg.full.classname.of.Dialect
hibernate.show_sql
Write all SQL statements to console. This is an alternative to setting the log category org.hibernate.SQL to debug.
eg.true | false
hibernate.format_sql
Pretty print the SQL in the log and console.
eg.true | false
hibernate.default_schema
Qualify unqualified tablenames with the given schema/tablespace in generated SQL.
eg.SCHEMA_NAME
hibernate.default_catalog
Qualify unqualified tablenames with the given catalog in generated SQL.
eg.CATALOG_NAME
hibernate.session_factory_name
The SessionFactory will be automatically bound to this name in JNDI after it has been created.
eg.jndi/composite/name
hibernate.max_fetch_depth
Set a maximum "depth" for the outer join fetch tree for single-ended associations (one-to-one, many-to-one). A 0 disables default outer join fetching.
eg. recommended values between 0 and 3
hibernate.default_batch_fetch_size
Set a default size for Hibernate batch fetching of associations.
eg. recommended values 4, 8, 16
hibernate.default_entity_mode
Set a default mode for entity representation for all sessions opened from this SessionFactory
dynamic-map, dom4j, pojo
hibernate.order_updates
Force Hibernate to order SQL updates by the primary key value of the items being updated. This will result in fewer transaction deadlocks in highly concurrent systems.
eg.true | false
hibernate.generate_statistics
If enabled, Hibernate will collect statistics useful for performance tuning.
eg.true | false
hibernate.use_identifer_rollback
If enabled, generated identifier properties will be reset to default values when objects are deleted.
eg.true | false
hibernate.use_sql_comments
If turned on, Hibernate will generate comments inside the SQL, for easier debugging, defaults to false.
eg.true | false
Table 3.3. Hibernate Configuration Properties
Property name
Purpose
hibernate.jdbc.fetch_size
A non-zero value determines the JDBC fetch size (calls Statement.setFetchSize()).
hibernate.jdbc.batch_size
A non-zero value enables use of JDBC2 batch updates by Hibernate.
eg. recommended values between 5 and 30
hibernate.jdbc.batch_versioned_data
Set this property to true if your JDBC driver returns correct row counts from executeBatch() (it is usually safe to turn this option on). Hibernate will then use batched DML for automatically versioned data. Defaults to false.
eg.true | false
hibernate.jdbc.factory_class
Select a custom Batcher. Most applications will not need this configuration property.
eg.classname.of.Batcher
hibernate.jdbc.use_scrollable_resultset
Enables use of JDBC2 scrollable resultsets by Hibernate. This property is only necessary when using user supplied JDBC connections, Hibernate uses connection metadata otherwise.
eg.true | false
hibernate.jdbc.use_streams_for_binary
Use streams when writing/reading binary or serializable types to/from JDBC (system-level property).
eg.true | false
hibernate.jdbc.use_get_generated_keys
Enable use of JDBC3 PreparedStatement.getGeneratedKeys() to retrieve natively generated keys after insert. Requires JDBC3+ driver and JRE1.4+, set to false if your driver has problems with the Hibernate identifier generators. By default, tries to determine the driver capabilites using connection metadata.
eg.true|false
hibernate.connection.provider_class
The classname of a custom ConnectionProvider which provides JDBC connections to Hibernate.
eg.classname.of.ConnectionProvider
hibernate.connection.isolation
Set the JDBC transaction isolation level. Check java.sql.Connection for meaningful values but note that most databases do not support all isolation levels.
eg.1, 2, 4, 8
hibernate.connection.autocommit
Enables autocommit for JDBC pooled connections (not recommended).
eg.true | false
hibernate.connection.release_mode
Specify when Hibernate should release JDBC connections. By default, a JDBC connection is held until the session is explicitly closed or disconnected. For an application server JTA datasource, you should use after_statement to aggressively release connections after every JDBC call. For a non-JTA connection, it often makes sense to release the connection at the end of each transaction, by using after_transaction. auto will choose after_statement for the JTA and CMT transaction strategies and after_transaction for the JDBC transaction strategy.
Note that this setting only affects Session s returned from SessionFactory.openSession. For Session s obtained through SessionFactory.getCurrentSession, the CurrentSessionContext implementation configured for use controls the connection release mode for those Session s. See Section 2.5, “Contextual Sessions”.
hibernate.connection.<propertyName>
Pass the JDBC property propertyName to DriverManager.getConnection().
hibernate.jndi.<propertyName>
Pass the property propertyName to the JNDI InitialContextFactory.
Table 3.4. Hibernate JDBC and Connection Properties
Property name
Purpose
hibernate.cache.provider_class
The classname of a custom CacheProvider.
eg.classname.of.CacheProvider
hibernate.cache.use_minimal_puts
Optimize second-level cache operation to minimize writes, at the cost of more frequent reads. This setting is most useful for clustered caches and, in Hibernate3, is enabled by default for clustered cache implementations.
eg.true|false
hibernate.cache.use_query_cache
Enable the query cache, individual queries still have to be set cachable.
eg.true|false
hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache
May be used to completely disable the second level cache, which is enabled by default for classes which specify a <cache> mapping.
eg.true|false
hibernate.cache.query_cache_factory
The classname of a custom QueryCache interface, defaults to the built-in StandardQueryCache.
eg.classname.of.QueryCache
hibernate.cache.region_prefix
A prefix to use for second-level cache region names.
eg.prefix
hibernate.cache.use_structured_entries
Forces Hibernate to store data in the second-level cache in a more human-friendly format.
eg.true|false
Table 3.5. Hibernate Cache Properties
Property name
Purpose
hibernate.transaction.factory_class
The classname of a TransactionFactory to use with Hibernate Transaction API (defaults to JDBCTransactionFactory).
eg.classname.of.TransactionFactory
jta.UserTransaction
A JNDI name used by JTATransactionFactory to obtain the JTA UserTransaction from the application server.
eg.jndi/composite/name
hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class
The classname of a TransactionManagerLookup - required when JVM-level caching is enabled or when using hilo generator in a JTA environment.
eg.classname.of.TransactionManagerLookup
hibernate.transaction.flush_before_completion
If enabled, the session will be automatically flushed during the before completion phase of the transaction. Built-in and automatic session context management is preferred, see Section 2.5, “Contextual Sessions”.
eg.true | false
hibernate.transaction.auto_close_session
If enabled, the session will be automatically closed during the after completion phase of the transaction. Built-in and utomatic session context management is preferred, see Section 2.5, “Contextual Sessions”.
eg.true | false
Table 3.6. Hibernate Transaction Properties
Property name
Purpose
hibernate.current_session_context_class
Supply a (custom) strategy for the scoping of the "current" Session. See Section 2.5, “Contextual Sessions” for more information about the built-in strategies.
eg.jta | thread | managed | custom.Class
hibernate.query.factory_class
Chooses the HQL parser implementation.
eg.org.hibernate.hql.ast.ASTQueryTranslatorFactory or org.hibernate.hql.classic.ClassicQueryTranslatorFactory
hibernate.query.substitutions
Mapping from tokens in Hibernate queries to SQL tokens (tokens might be function or literal names, for example).
eg.hqlLiteral=SQL_LITERAL, hqlFunction=SQLFUNC
hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto
Automatically validate or export schema DDL to the database when the SessionFactory is created. With create-drop, the database schema will be dropped when the SessionFactory is closed explicitly.
eg.validate | update | create | create-drop
hibernate.cglib.use_reflection_optimizer
Enables use of CGLIB instead of runtime reflection (System-level property). Reflection can sometimes be useful when troubleshooting, note that Hibernate always requires CGLIB even if you turn off the optimizer. You can not set this property in hibernate.cfg.xml.
eg.true | false
Table 3.7. Miscellaneous Properties
3.4.1. SQL Dialects
You should always set the hibernate.dialect property to the correct org.hibernate.dialect.Dialect subclass for your database. If you specify a dialect, Hibernate will use sensible defaults for some of the other properties listed above, saving you the effort of specifying them manually.
