@ManyToAny annotation in hibernate

Question

I am unable to understand the use of @ManyToAny annotation in Hibernate. In which case it should be used? I googled it, but the explanations in a couple of websites just bounced over my head...

Can anyone explain it with a simple example? How's it different from @ManyToMany and @ManyToOne?

seems like a similar question to [this one](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/217831/how-to-use-hibernate-any-related-annotations). — Lucas, Dec 26 '12 at 16:20

score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 26 '12 at 16:20

The javadoc says:

Defines a ToMany association pointing to different entity types. Matching the according entity type is done through a metadata discriminator column. This kind of mapping should be only marginal.

So instead of having a ManyToMany between Student and Course, you could have a ManyToAny between Student and [Course or Teacher], and the metadata discriminator column would say, for a given row, if it points to a Course or to a Teacher.

@ManyToAny annotation in hibernate

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