ClassCastException when persisting enum via Hibernate

Question

I've now wasted several hours trying to get this to work, but Hibernate still keeps me wondering what's going on there inside.
Here's what I want to do:
Simply persist a List of enums via @Enumerated which looks like this:

@LazyCollection(LazyCollectionOption.FALSE)
@ElementCollection(targetClass=Role.class)
@JoinTable(name = "userroles", joinColumns = @JoinColumn(name = "userId"))
@Enumerated(EnumType.ORDINAL)
private List<Role> roles;

My enum class:

public enum Role implements Serializable {
    employee("Mitarbeiter"),
    manager("Geschäftsleitung"),
    stationleader("Stationsleitung"),
    administration("Verwaltung"),
    accountant("Buchhaltung");
@Transient
private String description;

private Role()
{

}

public void setDescription(String description) {
    this.description = description;
}

private Role(String desc) {
    this.description = desc;
}

@Override
public String toString() {
    return description;
}

public String getDescription() {
    return description;
}   
}

The error I'm encountering occurs at a simple persist() of the class which is holding the List. And it's root cause is:

Caused by: java.lang.ClassCastException: java.lang.String cannot be cast to java.lang.Enum
at org.hibernate.type.EnumType.nullSafeSet(EnumType.java:118) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.type.CustomType.nullSafeSet(CustomType.java:155) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.persister.collection.AbstractCollectionPersister.writeElement(AbstractCollectionPersister.java:811) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.persister.collection.AbstractCollectionPersister.recreate(AbstractCollectionPersister.java:1201) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.action.internal.CollectionRecreateAction.execute(CollectionRecreateAction.java:58) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.engine.spi.ActionQueue.execute(ActionQueue.java:272) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.engine.spi.ActionQueue.executeActions(ActionQueue.java:264) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.engine.spi.ActionQueue.executeActions(ActionQueue.java:190) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.event.internal.AbstractFlushingEventListener.performExecutions(AbstractFlushingEventListener.java:326) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.event.internal.DefaultFlushEventListener.onFlush(DefaultFlushEventListener.java:52) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.internal.SessionImpl.flush(SessionImpl.java:1081) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.internal.SessionImpl.managedFlush(SessionImpl.java:315) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]
at org.hibernate.engine.transaction.synchronization.internal.SynchronizationCallbackCoordinatorImpl.beforeCompletion(SynchronizationCallbackCoordinatorImpl.java:104) [hibernate-core-4.0.1.Final.jar:4.0.1.Final]

How could I resolve this? There doesn't seem to be any known bugs of this and I just found non-answered threads in several forums. I also tried EnumType.STRING and leaving some of the annotations, without effect though :/
EDIT: I also tried to just use a raw enum with standard constructor and no fields, nothing but the values. So the error must not lie in my enum-pojo.
EDIT2:
My problem lied a bit elsewhere. (JSF and type safety). However I will accept the answer how pushed me in the right direction :)

Try converting your enum names to uppercase. If that doesn't help, set the logger level to TRACE and post the log here. — Marlon Bernardes, May 08 '13 at 02:20
@MarlonBernardes Converting to uppercase didn't change a thing. It also doesn't seem to work setting `Logger log = Logger.getLogger("org.hibernate.SQL"); log.setLevel(Level.TRACE);` as I don't see more log entrys than before. (1 Info) — Zhedar, May 08 '13 at 02:45
Use "org.hibernate.type" instead of "org.hibernate.SQL". Don't set it manually, it must be configured before application startup (eg.: log4j.properties -> log4j.logger.org.hibernate.type=TRACE) — Marlon Bernardes, May 08 '13 at 02:52
Well, still there's only one thing getting printed and that's `INFO [org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.batch.internal.AbstractBatchImpl] (http-localhost-127.0.0.1-8080-3) HHH000010: On release of batch it still contained JDBC statements` within those exceptions. It's hibernate 4.2.1Final — Zhedar, May 08 '13 at 02:58

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 22 '15 at 06:16

1

As your Enum have custom attributes you have some options:

Create your custom type (UserType) as follows: https://community.jboss.org/wiki/UserTypeforpersistingaTypesafeEnumerationwithaVARCHARcolumn
Create your Enum property as a transiente and use a String getter and setter to populate.

edited Nov 22 '15 at 06:16

Mohsen Heydari

7,256
4
31
46

answered May 08 '13 at 02:46

br araujo

1,856
2
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14

I already tried that. I wanted to explain that in the section below. But now I see I wrote ORDINAL there, too :/ Actually `String` was the first thing I tried. – Zhedar May 08 '13 at 02:48
What exception you got when you used String? – br araujo May 08 '13 at 02:49
Wouldn't 3 be the case when I tested it with a raw `enum`(no properties)? Because that's what I already did and that sadly didn't work out. The 1st would probably the best solution, but it seems so overcomplicated. – Zhedar May 08 '13 at 03:08
With a raw enum it must work. If didn't we will need to check your database structure. – br araujo May 08 '13 at 03:11
let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/29570/discussion-between-zhedar-and-br-araujo) – Zhedar May 08 '13 at 03:17

ClassCastException when persisting enum via Hibernate

1 Answers1