Default value not working in hibernate

Question

I have use columnDefinition to specify default value for a column, however it does not store default value it stores null only,

Please help regarding this, below is my code

private String sourceFrom;
@Column(name = "SourceFrom", columnDefinition = "varchar(15) default 'Case'")
public String getSourceFrom() {
    return sourceFrom;
}

public void setSourceFrom(String sourceFrom) {
    this.sourceFrom = sourceFrom;
}

Answer 1

@Column.columnDefinition is used during DDL phase to create your table and NOT during normal program running; probably you have to work with @DynamicInsert/@DynamicUpdate: this annotations insert (or update) only properties you setted into you POJO and let RDBMS to manage other fields.
A small example

@Entity
class MyTable {
  @Id
  private int code;
  @Column(name = "SourceFrom", columnDefinition = "varchar(15) default 'Case'")
  private String sourceFrom; 
}

and this is the generated code from DDL phase

create table mytable (code integer not null,SourceFrom varchar(15) default 'Case')

---

MyTable t = new MyTable();
t.setCode(10);
session.save(t);

will do this statement

insert into mytable (code, SourceFrom) values (10,NULL)

---

MyTable t = new MyTable();
t.setCode(10);
t.setSourceFrom("MANUAL INSERT");
session.save(t);

will do this statement

insert into mytable (code, SourceFrom) values (10,'MANUAL INSERT')

---

If you annotate MyTable with @DynamicInsert the first example will generate this statement

insert into mytable (code) values (10)

As you can see the value of field SourceFrom is not specified and value inserted into database table is defined by column definition default value ('Case' in this case).

Manual processing of default value (in setter, with @PrePersist or other solution) are still valid.

Answer 2

Your proposed solution should work, but is database dependent, so you might want to check up on whether your syntax actually works with your concrete DB. Another more generic approach is

@PrePersist
void preInsert() {
   if ( getSourceFrom() == null ) { setSourceFrom( "Case" ); }
}

Cheers,