Hibernate Annotations - Which is better, field or property access?

Question

This question is somewhat related to Hibernate Annotation Placement Question.

But I want to know which is better? Access via properties or access vi

Answer 1

I believe property access vs. field access is subtly different with regards to lazy initialisation.

Consider the following mappings for 2 basic beans:

And the following unit tests:

@Test
public void testFieldBean() {
    Session session = sessionFactory.openSession();
    Transaction tx = session.beginTransaction();
    FieldBean fb = new FieldBean("field");
    Long id = (Long) session.save(fb);
    tx.commit();
    session.close();

    session = sessionFactory.openSession();
    tx = session.beginTransaction();
    fb = (FieldBean) session.load(FieldBean.class, id);
    System.out.println(fb.getId());
    tx.commit();
    session.close();
}

@Test
public void testPropBean() {
    Session session = sessionFactory.openSession();
    Transaction tx = session.beginTransaction();
    PropBean pb = new PropBean("prop");
    Long id = (Long) session.save(pb);
    tx.commit();
    session.close();

    session = sessionFactory.openSession();
    tx = session.beginTransaction();
    pb = (PropBean) session.load(PropBean.class, id);
    System.out.println(pb.getId());
    tx.commit();
    session.close();
}

You will see the subtle difference in the selects required:

Hibernate: 
    call next value for hibernate_sequence
Hibernate: 
    insert 
    into
        FIELD_BEAN
        (message, id) 
    values
        (?, ?)
Hibernate: 
    select
        fieldbean0_.id as id1_0_,
        fieldbean0_.message as message1_0_ 
    from
        FIELD_BEAN fieldbean0_ 
    where
        fieldbean0_.id=?
0
Hibernate: 
    call next value for hibernate_sequence
Hibernate: 
    insert 
    into
        PROP_BEAN
        (message, id) 
    values
        (?, ?)
1

That is, calling fb.getId() requires a select, whereas pb.getId() does not.