Hibernate @Enumerated mapping

Question

Hibernate provides @Enumerated annotation which supports two types of Enum mapping either using ORDINAL or STRING. When w

Answer 1

The best to customize mapping for enums is to use AttributeConverter i.e:

@Entity
public class Person {
    ...
    @Basic
    @Convert( converter=GenderConverter.class )
    public Gender gender;
}

public enum Gender {
    MALE( 'M' ),
    FEMALE( 'F' );

    private final char code;

    private Gender(char code) {
        this.code = code;
    }

    public char getCode() {
        return code;
    }

    public static Gender fromCode(char code) {
        if ( code == 'M' || code == 'm' ) {
            return MALE;
        }
        if ( code == 'F' || code == 'f' ) {
            return FEMALE;
        }
        throw ...
    }
}

@Converter
public class GenderConverter
        implements AttributeConverter {

    public Character convertToDatabaseColumn(Gender value) {
        if ( value == null ) {
            return null;
        }

        return value.getCode();
    }

    public Gender convertToEntityAttribute(Character value) {
        if ( value == null ) {
            return null;
        }

        return Gender.fromCode( value );
    }
}

You can find it in Hibernate docs: http://docs.jboss.org/hibernate/orm/5.0/mappingGuide/en-US/html_single/#d5e678