I am using enums as field in my entities and am using MySQL 4.1 and I am not seeing my enums persisted as blobs.

Originally I created my table manually and created the columns that hold the enum values as varchars. An enum would get inserted into the table as its text value. Later, I let hbm2ddl create my tables and it created the enum columns as integers in which the enum gets persisted as its ordinal value.

In either case the persistance layer handles the enums appropriately and the app sees them as expected.

Sorry that I can't second your experience, but thought more info may be helpfull,
Jonn

1) I'm letting the database get created automatically on deployment of the ear. Is that what you mean by hbm2dll?

2) Can you tell me what version of jboss and of the ejb3 release you're using?

public enum MpaRating {
 NAV, G, PG, PG13, R, NC17, NR;

 public String getDescription() {
 switch (this) {
 case G: return "G";
 case PG: return "PG";
 case PG13: return "PG-13";
 case R: return "R";
 case NC17: return "NC-17";
 case NR: return "NR";
 case NAV:
 default: return "--";
 }
 }
}

@Entity
@Table(name = "MOVIES")
public class Movie {
 private long id;
 private String title;
...other fields...
 private MpaRating mpaRating;

 @Id(generate = GeneratorType.AUTO)
 public long getId() {
 return id;
 }
 public void setId(long id) {
 this.id = id;
 }
 public String getTitle() {
 return title;
 }
 public void setTitle(String title) {
 this.title = title;
 }
...other getters and setters...
 public MpaRating getMpaRating() {
 return mpaRating;
 }
 public void setMpaRating(MpaRating mpaRating) {
 this.mpaRating = mpaRating;
 }
}