Hibernate 3.6.0.Final + PostgreSQL + CLOBs

I recently upgraded a project I’m working on to Hibernate 3.6.0.Final from 3.5.6 and realized that one of my entities that had a CLOB (character large object) was pooping out.  I was getting an exception stack track similar to:

Caused by: org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: Bad value for type long : <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="productDetailLineItems"><thead><tr><td rowspan="2"><input type="hidden" name="productGroupId" id="productGroupId" value="101111"/>Item Number</td><td rowspan="2">Motor HP</td><td rowspan="2">Price</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><form method="post" id="4581000" name="4581000" action=""><td>4581000</td><td><span style="fraction"><sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></span></td><td><input type="button" onclick="javascript:addToCart('4581000');" value="$prc4581000" /></td></form></tr></tbody></table>

at org.postgresql.jdbc2.AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.toLong(AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.java:2690) [:]

at org.postgresql.jdbc2.AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.getLong(AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.java:1995) [:]

at org.postgresql.jdbc3.Jdbc3ResultSet.getClob(Jdbc3ResultSet.java:44) [:]

at org.postgresql.jdbc2.AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.getClob(AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.java:373) [:]

at org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.WrappedResultSet.getClob(WrappedResultSet.java:516) [:6.0.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.type.descriptor.sql.ClobTypeDescriptor$2.doExtract(ClobTypeDescriptor.java:70) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.type.descriptor.sql.BasicExtractor.extract(BasicExtractor.java:64) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.type.AbstractStandardBasicType.nullSafeGet(AbstractStandardBasicType.java:253) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.type.AbstractStandardBasicType.nullSafeGet(AbstractStandardBasicType.java:249) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.type.AbstractStandardBasicType.nullSafeGet(AbstractStandardBasicType.java:229) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.type.AbstractStandardBasicType.hydrate(AbstractStandardBasicType.java:330) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.hydrate(AbstractEntityPersister.java:2265) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.loadFromResultSet(Loader.java:1527) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.instanceNotYetLoaded(Loader.java:1455) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.getRow(Loader.java:1355) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.getRowFromResultSet(Loader.java:611) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.doQuery(Loader.java:829) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.doQueryAndInitializeNonLazyCollections(Loader.java:274) [:3.6.0.Final]

at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.loadEntity(Loader.java:2037) [:3.6.0.Final]

... 167 more

I do local development on my MacBook Pro with PostgreSQL 9.0.2 and will point my machine at the client’s DB2 database once in a while for pushes to their development system.  When I point the system at their DB dev database, everything works fine.  Pointing back at my PostgreSQL, the entity craps out.  I tried going back to the old 8.0 driver like some people online suggested with no luck.  I hadn’t tried using this entity since I upgraded to Hibernate 3.6 because I also have been moving from OpenEJB to JBoss 6 so it could have been that as well.

Ultimately I found a simple solution.  PostgreSQL apparently doesn’t play well with Hibernate 3.6 and requires a specific Hibernate annotation on your entity (I’m using JPA entities by the way).  On your CLOB, in addition to the @Lob, add:

@Type(type="org.hibernate.type.StringClobType")

Redeploy your application and Hibernate should behave properly.