Why do I need to configure the SQL dialect of a data source?

Question

When we configure a data source using Hibernate, we should add the hibernate.dialect property (or eclipselink.target-database if you are using Ecli

Answer 1

Databases implement subtle differences in the SQL they use. Things such as data types for example vary across databases (e.g. in Oracle You might put an integer value in a number field and in SQL Server use an int field). Or database specific functionality - selecting the top n rows is different depending on the database. The dialect abstracts this so you don't have to worry about it.