Using xml config instead of @Type annotation in hibernate with Spring Data JPA

My company uses java 7 with hibernate 3 with spring 3 in one of it's legacy projects. All of the spring and hibernate configs are in xml files and they don't use annotations.

For some customers the database is oracle and for others it's db2.

In oracle we have problem when the data type is Date and we use java.util.date with time. The problem was located at the binding level when Hibernate prepared the query.

java.util.Date is converted to java.sql.Timestamp and finally bound to oracle.sql.TIMESTAMP.

Our column has oracle.sql.DATE type so there is an implicit conversion in Oracle to perform the query causing the index not to be used.

Our solution was using UserTypes in hibernate to convert java Date to Oracle Date in oracle databases.

But as I said we use xml config and I couldn't find xml config for @Type annotation when using hibernate with spring Jpa.

code for person class with logindate with Date type:

import org.hibernate.annotations.Type;

import javax.persistence.*;
import java.util.Date;

public class Person {
    private Integer id;
    private String fullName;
//    @Type(type = "mypackage.OracleDate")
    private Date loginDate;

    public Integer getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(Integer id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getFullName() {
        return fullName;
    }

    public void setFullName(String fullName) {
        this.fullName = fullName;
    }

    public Date getLoginDate() {
        return loginDate;
    }

    public void setLoginDate(Date loginDate) {
        this.loginDate = loginDate;
    }
}

code for OracleDate UserType:

public class OracleDate implements UserType {
private static final int[] SQL_TYPES = new int[] {
        Types.TIMESTAMP
};

@Override
public int[] sqlTypes() {
    return SQL_TYPES;
}
@Override
public Class returnedClass() {
    return Date.class;
}
@Override
public boolean equals(Object x, Object y) throws HibernateException {
    if (x == y) {
        return true;
    }
    if (x == null || y == null) {
        return false;
    }
    Date dtx = (Date) x;
    Date dty = (Date) y;
    return dtx.equals(dty);
}
@Override
public int hashCode(Object o) throws HibernateException {
    return o.hashCode();
}

@Override
public Object nullSafeGet(ResultSet resultSet, String[] names, Object owner) throws HibernateException, SQLException {
    Object timestamp = StandardBasicTypes.TIMESTAMP.nullSafeGet(resultSet, names, null, owner);
    if (resultSet.wasNull())
        return null;
    if (timestamp == null) {
        return null;
    }
    Date ts = (Date) timestamp;
    return ts;
}

@Override
public void nullSafeSet(PreparedStatement preparedStatement, Object value, int index) throws HibernateException, SQLException {
    if (value == null) {
        StandardBasicTypes.TIMESTAMP.nullSafeSet(preparedStatement, null, index);
    } else {
        Date ldt = ((Date) value);
        preparedStatement.setObject(index, new DATE(new Timestamp(ldt.getTime())));
    }
}

jpa bean:

<bean id="hostEntityManager"
      class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean">
    <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"></property>
    <property name="persistenceUnitManager" ref="persistenceUnitManager"></property>
    <property name="loadTimeWeaver">
        <bean
                class="org.springframework.instrument.classloading.InstrumentationLoadTimeWeaver" />
    </property>
</bean>
<bean id="persistenceUnitManager"
      class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.persistenceunit.DefaultPersistenceUnitManager">

    <property name="persistenceXmlLocations" value="
    classpath:PREPAID.CFG/DA.JPA/PERSISTENCE-ENTITIES/persistence.xml/>

    <property name="persistenceUnitPostProcessors">
        <bean class="mypackage.MergingPersistenceUnitPostProcessor" />
    </property>
    <property name="defaultDataSource" ref="dataSource"></property>
</bean>

persistence.xml file:

<persistence version="2.0"
         xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd ">
<persistence-unit name="system_persistence_unit">

    <provider>org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence</provider>
    <mapping-file>TESTAPPLICATION/CFG/DA/JPA/PERSISTENCE-ENTITIES/person.xml</mapping-file>
    <class>mypackage.Person</class>
    <properties>
        <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle10gDialect"/>
        <property name="show_sql" value="true"/>
        <property name="hibernate.archive.autodetection" value="class" />
    </properties>
</persistence-unit>

entitymapping file:

<entity-mappings xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm"
             version="2.0">

<entity class="mypackage.Person">

    <table name="Person" />

    <named-query name="findLoginsByDate">
        <query>select p from Person as p where p.loginDate >= :date </query>
    </named-query>

    <attributes>
        <id name="id">
            <column name="id" />
        </id>

        <basic name="fullName">
            <column name="username" />
        </basic>

        <basic name="loginDate"  >
            <column name="loginDate" />
        </basic>
    </attributes>

</entity>

At first I want know Is using usertype the best solution for handling my problem?

And what's the xml config for TypeDef and Type annotations?