anonymous wrote : | SELECT d | FROM Department d LEFT JOIN FETCH d.employees | WHERE d.deptno = 1 | | A fetch join has the same join semantics as the corresponding inner or outer join, except that the related | objects specified on the right-hand side of the join operation are not returned in the query result or otherwise | referenced in the query. Hence, for example, if department 1 has five employees, the above query | returns five references to the department 1 entity. | Which seems to imply that what you see is the defined behavior, although I can't imagine why. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3966807#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...