An instance of org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration represents an entire set of mappings of an application's Java types to an SQL database. The Configuration is used to build an (immutable) SessionFactory. The mappings are compiled from various XML mapping files.

You may obtain a Configuration instance by instantiating it directly and specifying XML mapping documents. If the mapping files are in the classpath, use addResource():

Configuration cfg = new Configuration()
    .addResource("Item.hbm.xml")
    .addResource("Bid.hbm.xml");

An alternative (sometimes better) way is to specify the mapped class, and let Hibernate find the mapping document for you:

Configuration cfg = new Configuration()
    .addClass(org.hibernate.auction.Item.class)
    .addClass(org.hibernate.auction.Bid.class);

Then Hibernate will look for mapping files named /org/hibernate/auction/Item.hbm.xml and /org/hibernate/auction/Bid.hbm.xml in the classpath. This approach eliminates any hardcoded filenames.

A Configuration also allows you to specify configuration properties:

Configuration cfg = new Configuration()
    .addClass(org.hibernate.auction.Item.class)
    .addClass(org.hibernate.auction.Bid.class)
    .setProperty("hibernate.dialect", "org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLInnoDBDialect")
    .setProperty("hibernate.connection.datasource", "java:comp/env/jdbc/test")
    .setProperty("hibernate.order_updates", "true");

This is not the only way to pass configuration properties to Hibernate. The various options include:

hibernate.properties is the easiest approach if you want to get started quickly.

The Configuration is intended as a startup-time object, to be discarded once a SessionFactory is created.

When all mappings have been parsed by the Configuration, the application must obtain a factory for Session instances. This factory is intended to be shared by all application threads:

SessionFactory sessions = cfg.buildSessionFactory();

Hibernate does allow your application to instantiate more than one SessionFactory. This is useful if you are using more than one database.

Usually, you want to have the SessionFactory create and pool JDBC connections for you. If you take this approach, opening a Session is as simple as:

Session session = sessions.openSession(); // open a new Session

As soon as you do something that requires access to the database, a JDBC connection will be obtained from the pool.

For this to work, we need to pass some JDBC connection properties to Hibernate. All Hibernate property names and semantics are defined on the class org.hibernate.cfg.Environment. We will now describe the most important settings for JDBC connection configuration.

Hibernate will obtain (and pool) connections using java.sql.DriverManager if you set the following properties:

Hibernate's own connection pooling algorithm is however quite rudimentary. It is intended to help you get started and is not intended for use in a production system or even for performance testing. You should use a third party pool for best performance and stability. Just replace the hibernate.connection.pool_size property with connection pool specific settings. This will turn off Hibernate's internal pool. For example, you might like to use C3P0.

C3P0 is an open source JDBC connection pool distributed along with Hibernate in the lib directory. Hibernate will use its C3P0ConnectionProvider for connection pooling if you set hibernate.c3p0.* properties. If you'd like to use Proxool refer to the packaged hibernate.properties and the Hibernate web site for more information.

Here is an example hibernate.properties file for C3P0:

hibernate.connection.driver_class = org.postgresql.Driver
hibernate.connection.url = jdbc:postgresql://localhost/mydatabase
hibernate.connection.username = myuser
hibernate.connection.password = secret
hibernate.c3p0.min_size=5
hibernate.c3p0.max_size=20
hibernate.c3p0.timeout=1800
hibernate.c3p0.max_statements=50
hibernate.dialect = org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect

For use inside an application server, you should almost always configure Hibernate to obtain connections from an application server Datasource registered in JNDI. You'll need to set at least one of the following properties:

Here's an example hibernate.properties file for an application server provided JNDI datasource:

hibernate.connection.datasource = java:/comp/env/jdbc/test
hibernate.transaction.factory_class = \
    org.hibernate.transaction.JTATransactionFactory
hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class = \
    org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup
hibernate.dialect = org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect

JDBC connections obtained from a JNDI datasource will automatically participate in the container-managed transactions of the application server.

Arbitrary connection properties may be given by prepending "hibernate.connnection" to the property name. For example, you may specify a charSet using hibernate.connection.charSet.

You may define your own plugin strategy for obtaining JDBC connections by implementing the interface org.hibernate.connection.ConnectionProvider. You may select a custom implementation by setting hibernate.connection.provider_class.

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.

hibernate.query.substitutions true=1, false=0

hibernate.query.substitutions toLowercase=LOWER

Hibernate logs various events using Apache commons-logging.

The commons-logging service will direct output to either Apache Log4j (if you include log4j.jar in your classpath) or JDK1.4 logging (if running under JDK1.4 or above). You may download Log4j from http://jakarta.apache.org. To use Log4j you will need to place a log4j.properties file in your classpath, an example properties file is distributed with Hibernate in the src/ directory.

We strongly recommend that you familiarize yourself with Hibernate's log messages. A lot of work has been put into making the Hibernate log as detailed as possible, without making it unreadable. It is an essential troubleshooting device. The most interesting log categories are the following:

When developing applications with Hibernate, you should almost always work with debug enabled for the category org.hibernate.SQL, or, alternatively, the property hibernate.show_sql enabled.

The interface org.hibernate.cfg.NamingStrategy allows you to specify a "naming standard" for database objects and schema elements.

You may provide rules for automatically generating database identifiers from Java identifiers or for processing "logical" column and table names given in the mapping file into "physical" table and column names. This feature helps reduce the verbosity of the mapping document, eliminating repetitive noise (TBL_ prefixes, for example). The default strategy used by Hibernate is quite minimal.

You may specify a different strategy by calling Configuration.setNamingStrategy() before adding mappings:

SessionFactory sf = new Configuration()
    .setNamingStrategy(ImprovedNamingStrategy.INSTANCE)
    .addFile("Item.hbm.xml")
    .addFile("Bid.hbm.xml")
    .buildSessionFactory();

org.hibernate.cfg.ImprovedNamingStrategy is a built-in strategy that might be a useful starting point for some applications.

An alternative approach to configuration is to specify a full configuration in a file named hibernate.cfg.xml. This file can be used as a replacement for the hibernate.properties file or, if both are present, to override properties.

The XML configuration file is by default expected to be in the root o your CLASSPATH. Here is an example:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC
    "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD//EN"
    "http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">

<hibernate-configuration>

    <!-- a SessionFactory instance listed as /jndi/name -->
    <session-factory
        name="java:hibernate/SessionFactory">

        <!-- properties -->
        <property name="connection.datasource">java:/comp/env/jdbc/MyDB</property>
        <property name="dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</property>
        <property name="show_sql">false</property>
        <property name="transaction.factory_class">
            org.hibernate.transaction.JTATransactionFactory
        </property>
        <property name="jta.UserTransaction">java:comp/UserTransaction</property>

        <!-- mapping files -->
        <mapping resource="org/hibernate/auction/Item.hbm.xml"/>
        <mapping resource="org/hibernate/auction/Bid.hbm.xml"/>

        <!-- cache settings -->
        <class-cache class="org.hibernate.auction.Item" usage="read-write"/>
        <class-cache class="org.hibernate.auction.Bid" usage="read-only"/>
        <collection-cache collection="org.hibernate.auction.Item.bids" usage="read-write"/>

    </session-factory>

</hibernate-configuration>

As you can see, the advantage of this approach is the externalization of the mapping file names to configuration. The hibernate.cfg.xml is also more convenient once you have to tune the Hibernate cache. Note that is your choice to use either hibernate.properties or hibernate.cfg.xml, both are equivalent, except for the above mentioned benefits of using the XML syntax.

With the XML configuration, starting Hibernate is then as simple as

SessionFactory sf = new Configuration().configure().buildSessionFactory();

You can pick a different XML configuration file using

SessionFactory sf = new Configuration()
    .configure("catdb.cfg.xml")
    .buildSessionFactory();

Hibernate has the following integration points for J2EE infrastructure:

Depending on your environment, you might have to set the configuration option hibernate.connection.aggressive_release to true if your application server shows "connection containment" exceptions.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<server>

<mbean code="org.hibernate.jmx.HibernateService"
    name="jboss.jca:service=HibernateFactory,name=HibernateFactory">

    <!-- Required services -->
    <depends>jboss.jca:service=RARDeployer</depends>
    <depends>jboss.jca:service=LocalTxCM,name=HsqlDS</depends>

    <!-- Bind the Hibernate service to JNDI -->
    <attribute name="JndiName">java:/hibernate/SessionFactory</attribute>

    <!-- Datasource settings -->
    <attribute name="Datasource">java:HsqlDS</attribute>
    <attribute name="Dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect</attribute>

    <!-- Transaction integration -->
    <attribute name="TransactionStrategy">
        org.hibernate.transaction.JTATransactionFactory</attribute>
    <attribute name="TransactionManagerLookupStrategy">
        org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup</attribute>
    <attribute name="FlushBeforeCompletionEnabled">true</attribute>
    <attribute name="AutoCloseSessionEnabled">true</attribute>

    <!-- Fetching options -->
    <attribute name="MaximumFetchDepth">5</attribute>

    <!-- Second-level caching -->
    <attribute name="SecondLevelCacheEnabled">true</attribute>
    <attribute name="CacheProviderClass">org.hibernate.cache.EhCacheProvider</attribute>
    <attribute name="QueryCacheEnabled">true</attribute>

    <!-- Logging -->
    <attribute name="ShowSqlEnabled">true</attribute>

    <!-- Mapping files -->
    <attribute name="MapResources">auction/Item.hbm.xml,auction/Category.hbm.xml</attribute>

</mbean>

</server>