title: Persisting a Map<String,String> in ORMLite without resorting to DataType.SERIALIZABLE?
body: <p>I've got a relatively simple class that is primarily backed by a <code>Map&lt;String,String&gt;</code>.  I'd like to persist this class and be able search within the keys within the map.  Based on this <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7155923/persist-hashmap-in-ormlite">Stack Overflow question</a> I get the feeling that Maps can only be persisted as a serialized blob.</p>
  
  <p>I also see on the <a href="http://ormlite.com/javadoc/ormlite-core/doc-files/ormlite_2.html#SEC30" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ORMLite website</a> the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public class Account {
      …
      @ForeignCollectionField(eager = false)
      ForeignCollection&lt;Order&gt; orders;
      …
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>In the above example, the @ForeignCollectionField annotation marks
    that the orders field is a collection of the orders that match the
    account. The field type of orders must be either ForeignCollection
    or <code>Collection&lt;T&gt;</code> - no other collections are supported. The
    @ForeignCollectionField annotation supports the following fields:</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Based on the above I get the impression that what I want isn't possible, but I thought I'd check here to be sure.  I have it persisted in Hibernate, but I'd rather use something lighter like ORMLite!</p>