Alternatively, each subclass may be mapped to its own table (table-per-subclass mapping strategy). Inherited state is retrieved by joining with the table of the superclass. We use the <joined-subclass> element.

<joined-subclass
        name="ClassName"
        table="tablename"
        proxy="ProxyInterface"
        lazy="true|false"
        dynamic-update="true|false"
        dynamic-insert="true|false"
        schema="schema"
        catalog="catalog"
        extends="SuperclassName"
        persister="ClassName"
        subselect="SQL expression"
        entity-name="EntityName"
        node="element-name">

        <key .... >

        <property .... />
        .....
</joined-subclass>

name: The fully qualified class name of the subclass.

table: The name of the subclass table.

proxy (optional): Specifies a class or interface to use for lazy initializing proxies.

lazy (optional, defaults to true): Setting lazy="false" disables the use of lazy fetching.

No discriminator column is required for this mapping strategy. Each subclass must, however, declare a table column holding the object identifier using the <key> element. The mapping at the start of the chapter would be re-written as:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC
        "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD//EN"
        "http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd">

<hibernate-mapping package="eg">

        <class name="Cat" table="CATS">
                <id name="id" column="uid" type="long">
                        <generator class="hilo"/>
                </id>
                <property name="birthdate" type="date"/>
                <property name="color" not-null="true"/>
                <property name="sex" not-null="true"/>
                <property name="weight"/>
                <many-to-one name="mate"/>
                <set name="kittens">
                        <key column="MOTHER"/>
                        <one-to-many class="Cat"/>
                </set>
                <joined-subclass name="DomesticCat" table="DOMESTIC_CATS">
                    <key column="CAT"/>
                    <property name="name" type="string"/>
                </joined-subclass>
        </class>

        <class name="eg.Dog">
                <!-- mapping for Dog could go here -->
        </class>

</hibernate-mapping>

For information about inheritance mappings, see Chapter 9, Inheritance Mapping.