How to use the Java 8 LocalDateTime with JPA and Hibernate

Since Hibernate 4 doesn't support it you need to implement a user type as shown in this example.

import org.hibernate.HibernateException;
import org.hibernate.engine.spi.SessionImplementor;
import org.hibernate.type.StandardBasicTypes;
import org.hibernate.usertype.EnhancedUserType;

import java.io.Serializable;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.sql.Types;
import java.time.Instant;
import java.time.LocalDateTime;
import java.time.ZoneId;
import java.util.Date;

public class LocalDateTimeUserType implements EnhancedUserType, Serializable {

    private static final int[] SQL_TYPES = new int[]{Types.TIMESTAMP};

    @Override
    public int[] sqlTypes() {
        return SQL_TYPES;
    }

    @Override
    public Class returnedClass() {
        return LocalDateTime.class;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object x, Object y) throws HibernateException {
        if (x == y) {
            return true;
        }
        if (x == null || y == null) {
            return false;
        }
        LocalDateTime dtx = (LocalDateTime) x;
        LocalDateTime dty = (LocalDateTime) y;
        return dtx.equals(dty);
    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode(Object object) throws HibernateException {
        return object.hashCode();
    }


    @Override
    public Object nullSafeGet(ResultSet resultSet, String[] names, SessionImplementor session, Object owner)
            throws HibernateException, SQLException {
        Object timestamp = StandardBasicTypes.TIMESTAMP.nullSafeGet(resultSet, names, session, owner);
        if (timestamp == null) {
            return null;
        }
        Date ts = (Date) timestamp;
        Instant instant = Instant.ofEpochMilli(ts.getTime());
        return LocalDateTime.ofInstant(instant, ZoneId.systemDefault());
    }

    @Override
    public void nullSafeSet(PreparedStatement preparedStatement, Object value, int index, SessionImplementor session)
            throws HibernateException, SQLException {
        if (value == null) {
            StandardBasicTypes.TIMESTAMP.nullSafeSet(preparedStatement, null, index, session);
        } else {
            LocalDateTime ldt = ((LocalDateTime) value);
            Instant instant = ldt.atZone(ZoneId.systemDefault()).toInstant();
            Date timestamp = Date.from(instant);
            StandardBasicTypes.TIMESTAMP.nullSafeSet(preparedStatement, timestamp, index, session);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public Object deepCopy(Object value) throws HibernateException {
        return value;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isMutable() {
        return false;
    }

    @Override
    public Serializable disassemble(Object value) throws HibernateException {
        return (Serializable) value;
    }

    @Override
    public Object assemble(Serializable cached, Object value) throws HibernateException {
        return cached;
    }

    @Override
    public Object replace(Object original, Object target, Object owner) throws HibernateException {
        return original;
    }

    @Override
    public String objectToSQLString(Object object) {
        throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
    }

    @Override
    public String toXMLString(Object object) {
        return object.toString();
    }

    @Override
    public Object fromXMLString(String string) {
        return LocalDateTime.parse(string);
    }

}

The new usertype can then be used in the mapping with the @Type annotation. For e.g.

@Type(type="com.hibernate.samples.type.LocalDateTimeUserType")
@Column(name = "invalidate_token_date")
private LocalDateTime invalidateTokenDate;

The @Type annotation needs a full path to the class that implements the userType interface; this is the factory for producing the target type of the mapped column.

Here's how to do the same thing in JPA2.1

For any Hibernate 5.x users, there is

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
    <artifactId>hibernate-java8</artifactId>
    <version>5.0.0.Final</version>
</dependency>

You don't need to do anything else. Just add the dependency, and the Java 8 time types should work like any other basic types, no annotations required.

private LocalDateTime invalidateTokenDate;

Note: this won't save to timestamp type though. Testing with MySQL, it saves to datetime type.