Question

All my db tables should have an endTime field which by default should be END_OF_TIME or something like that. I am not happy about the 2038 limitation so I want endTime to be of type DATETIME in mysql.

My Java code is:

@MappedSuperclass
@Inheritance(strategy=InheritanceType.TABLE_PER_CLASS)
public class BaseDBEntity {
@Id
@Column(length=36)
public String id;

@Temporal(TemporalType.TIMESTAMP) 
public Date startTime;

@Temporal(TemporalType.TIMESTAMP) 
public Date endTime;

public BaseDBEntity() {
}

}

I can work around by creating the table manually with an endTime field of type DATETIME, and than map the entity endTime to that column, however I would like Hibernate to generate the tables automatically – how can I do that?

Answer 1

Use the columnDefinition attribute of the @Column annotation:

@Column(name = "startTime", columnDefinition="DATETIME")
@Temporal(TemporalType.TIMESTAMP)
private Date startTime;

And please, make your attributes private.