hibernate/hibernate-orm · error · AnnotationException

Embeddable '<name>' has a discriminator of character type an

Error message

Embeddable '<name>' has a discriminator of character type and must specify its '@DiscriminatorValue'

What it means

Error "Embeddable '<name>' has a discriminator of character type and must specify its '@DiscriminatorValue'" thrown in hibernate/hibernate-orm.

Source

Thrown at hibernate-core/src/main/java/org/hibernate/boot/model/internal/EmbeddableBinder.java:822

			BasicType<?> discriminatorType,
			Map<Object, String> discriminatorValues) {
		return discriminatorValues.put(
				discriminatorType.getJavaTypeDescriptor()
						.fromString( discriminatorValue( annotatedClass, discriminatorType ) ),
				annotatedClass.getName().intern()
		);
	}

	private static String discriminatorValue(ClassDetails annotatedClass, BasicType<?> discriminatorType) {
		final String explicitValue =
				annotatedClass.hasDirectAnnotationUsage( DiscriminatorValue.class )
						? annotatedClass.getDirectAnnotationUsage( DiscriminatorValue.class ).value()
						: null;
		if ( isBlank( explicitValue ) ) {
			final String name = unqualify( annotatedClass.getName() );
			return switch ( discriminatorType.getName() ) {
				case "character" ->
						throw new AnnotationException( "Embeddable '" + name
								+ "' has a discriminator of character type and must specify its '@DiscriminatorValue'" );
				case "integer" -> String.valueOf( name.hashCode() );
				default -> name;
			};
		}
		else {
			return explicitValue;
		}
	}

	private static boolean isValidSuperclass(ClassDetails superClass, boolean isIdClass) {
		if ( superClass == null ) {
			return false;
		}
		else if ( isMappedSuperclass( superClass ) ) {
			return true;
		}
		else if ( isIdClass ) {

View on GitHub (pinned to fad1729dce)

Solutions

1. Specify @DiscriminatorValue explicitly on the embeddable with a character-type discriminator.

When it happens

Trigger: An @Embeddable / @Embedded / @ElementCollection mapping violates an embeddable mapping constraint.

Common situations: Embeddables with @Id members, inheritance, recursive composition, or properties split across multiple tables; or @Convert/@EmbeddedTable placed where unsupported.

AI-assisted analysis of hibernate/hibernate-orm@fad1729dce (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/8df633a7cfe9f473. Report an issue: GitHub.