Hibernate backed model object in non-db situation

[gaffonso]

I need a little advice.

We've got a Spring managed, hibernate-backed domain/model object that looks like this:

Address
- String firstname
- String lastname
- String street1
- State state
- Country country

Both State and Country are objects that, via hibernate, are many-to-one relationships to records in the state and countries table.

My question is this:

Can I use this object without using hibernate? In other words, the object is everything I want it to be with regard to fields, getters, setters, etc.

But I want to create this object, store data in it, and later throw it away without it ever getting persisted to the database. Any danger there? Will anything complain?

How do I handle the State and Country objects? When I create the object I need to set State and Country based on the StateID and CountryID which I have. But without hibernate in the picture the system won't know how to create a State object or a Country object, right?

Any guidance is most appreciated.

Thanks,

- Gary

[Costin Leau]

You can use your object without a problem - HB doesn't change Java semantics. As long as your object is not binded/attached to a HB Session, you can do whatever you want to it and the changes will not be propagated.
However, if your object is attached to a session you can make the session read-only (FlushMode.NEVER) but be careful because usually you will run into problems in the long term managing readOnly session and read/write ones.

How do I handle the State and Country objects? When I create the object I need to set State and Country based on the StateID and CountryID which I have. But without hibernate in the picture the system won't know how to create a State object or a Country object, right?

It depends on the workflow of your application - if you use the ID inside the equals/hashcode of your objects then you need to set them manually. One solution would be to use a business key (based on other properties which will be set anyways) or use a UUID which can be created automatically when the object is instantiated.