Persistenting Custom Objects

[rdejana]

I'm trying to use hibernate to persist a custom object as process variable. The documenation says, just add to the hibernate config file and go, howerver it isn't working. The system complains that the entity is unpersistable according to the jbpm.varmapping.xml configuration.

Any pointers on setting up hibernate?

[joe_jboss]

The system will automatically persist serializable classes as byte arrays.

[rdejana]

I realize that, but I'd like to be able save the objects to an existing db schema; serialized classes won't due.

[salaboy21]

That is an easy task.
You must look the jbpm.varmapping.xml and you find something like that:

 <!-- java.io.Serializable -->
 <jbpm-type>
 <matcher>
 <bean class="org.jbpm.context.exe.matcher.SerializableMatcher" />
 </matcher>
 <converter class="org.jbpm.context.exe.converter.SerializableToByteArrayConverter" />
 <variable-instance class="org.jbpm.context.exe.variableinstance.ByteArrayInstance" />
 </jbpm-type>

This means that you have a matcher (that look the type of your class that you want to persist)

And then when your object match with a matcher you must convert it with a converter to a VariableInstance (more precisely a sub class that you define).

For an easy use I recommend you to look at the next pair of matchers and converters:

<!-- hibernatable long id types -->
 <jbpm-type>
 <matcher>
 <bean class="org.jbpm.context.exe.matcher.HibernateLongIdMatcher" />
 </matcher>
 <variable-instance class="org.jbpm.context.exe.variableinstance.HibernateLongInstance" />
 </jbpm-type>

 <!-- hibernatable string id types -->
 <jbpm-type>
 <matcher>
 <bean class="org.jbpm.context.exe.matcher.HibernateStringIdMatcher" />
 </matcher>
 <variable-instance class="org.jbpm.context.exe.variableinstance.HibernateStringInstance" />
 </jbpm-type>

This two matchers have the logic to search in your objects that have an hibernate mappings (defined in hbms files) but with a Long ID (HibernateLongInstance) or a
String ID (HibernateStringIdMatcher).
So, if your object does not have a Long or String ID, this two matchers wont work.
In this case you must implement your own matcher and your variable instance, following the same directions. (like HibernateStringInstance or HibernateLongInstance)

I hope it helps!!!

[kukeltje]

Personally I would not store domain specific objects in the jBPM table. I'd just store a reference to them (e.g. the primary key of it). The objects themselves I'd store them in their own database