Maven + Spring + Hibernate: hibernate3-maven-plugin hbm2ddl fails for reason “Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException”

Question

I had to downgrade Hibernate from version 4 to version 3 (3.3.2.GA to be specific), due to current lack of support for Hibernate 4 within Spring, and now the project fails t

Answer 1

For a large project (more than 250 Entities), I use the following pom.xml witch works fine and generate the schema during the compile phase. Note : persistence.xml specifies the database dialect.

4.0.0

test
jpa
1.0-SNAPSHOT


    
    
        javax
        javaee-api
        6.0
        provided
    



    

        
        
            org.codehaus.mojo
            hibernate3-maven-plugin
            3.0
            
                
                    generate.database.schema.from.ejb.annotation
                    compile
                    
                        run
                    
                    
                        
                            
                            
                                
                            
                        
                    
                
            
            
                
                
                    org.hibernate
                    hibernate-core
                    3.6.10.Final
                
                
                    org.hibernate
                    hibernate-entitymanager
                    3.6.10.Final
                
                
                    org.hibernate
                    hibernate-validator
                    4.1.0.Final
                
                
                    javassist
                    javassist
                    3.4.GA