Getting error while executing criteria query on enum column in mysql table hibernate

Question

This is the code :

Session session = sessionFactory.getCurrentSession();
Criteria criteria = session.createCriteria(Contact.class)
    .add(Restrictions.like("gender", "male", MatchMode.ANYWHERE)));
List<Object[]> contactList = criteria.list();

Where gender is enum type column in Contact.java

@Entity
@Table(name = "contact_master")
public class Contact {

      public enum Gender {
           MALE,FEMALE
      }

      @Column(name = "gender")
      @Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
      private Gender gender;

      public Gender getGender() {
         return gender;
      }

      public void setGender(Gender gender) {
          this.gender = gender;
      }

}

When i run above code i am getting exception like :

java.lang.ClassCastException: java.lang.String cannot be cast to java.lang.Enum

Answer 1

You can define another non-insertable and non-updatable field of String type mapped to the same column:

@Entity
@Table(name = "contact_master")
public class Contact {

      public enum Gender {
           MALE,FEMALE
      }

      @Column(name = "gender")
      @Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
      private Gender gender;

      @Column(name = "gender", insertable = false, updatable = false)
      private String genderAsText;

      public Gender getGender() {
         return gender;
      }

      public void setGender(Gender gender) {
          this.gender = gender;
      }
}

You don't need getters and setters for it and you can use it only in queries in which you need to treat gender as plain text:

Criteria criteria = session.createCriteria(Contact.class)
    .add(Restrictions.ilike("genderAsText", "male", MatchMode.ANYWHERE)));

Note that I also use Restrictions.ilike method as you probably want the comparison to be case insensitive.