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Hibernate Inheritance Mapping Tutorial

We can map the inheritance hierarchy classes with the table of the database. There are three inheritance mapping strategies defined in the hibernate:

1. Table Per Hierarchy
2. Table Per Concrete class
3. Table Per Subclass

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Table Per Hierarchy

In table per hierarchy mapping, single table is required to map the whole hierarchy, an extra column (known as discriminator column) is added to identify the class. But nullable values are stored in the table .

Table Per Hierarchy using xml file
Table Per Hierarchy using Annotation

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Table Per Concrete class

In case of table per concrete class, tables are created as per class. But duplicate column is added in subclass tables.

Table Per Concrete class using xml file
Table Per Concrete class using Annotation

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Table Per Subclass

In this strategy, tables are created as per class but related by foreign key. So there are no duplicate columns.

Table Per Subclass using xml file
Table Per Subclass using Annotation