title: DB (oracle) column description using hibernate / data dictionary
body: <p>we use Hibernate for creating the DB schema and as ORM. We like to have the persistent layer exchangable between Postgres, Oracle and HSQLDB.</p>
  
  <p>Since there is also a DB team for Oracle, there are many times questions like "What does this column mean?" and the answer is in the Java class as JavaDoc. So what I am looking for is a possibility to add description to columns by using the text at the class property (best would be the java doc). However, google didn't find anything helpful except of this:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://hibernate.onjira.com/browse/HHH-4369" rel="nofollow">https://hibernate.onjira.com/browse/HHH-4369</a></p>
  
  <p>I doubt, that this request will be implemented.</p>
  
  <p>One idea might be to write my own annotation @ColumnDesc("my description") and write a lib, that scans class for this annotation and generate extra DDL (alter table) script for the column description and execute this script. This seems little bit complicated, since I need to get the table and column name.</p>
  
  <p>So my question is:</p>
  
  <p>Is there a workaround or other easy way to create column descriptions in the DB (oracle) when creating the DB with Hibernate Tools (hbm2ddl)?</p>
  
  <p>Alternative: Is there an easy way to generate a data dictionary for the tables and columns generated by hibernate? (Please don't say JavaDoc, DBAs can't read JavaDocs)</p>
  
  <p>We use the annotation hibernate defintion (no XML).</p>
  
  <p>Thanks for any hint!</p>
  
  <p>Regards,</p>
  
  <p>Andreas</p>