This is not new, and may belong with the hibernate people (just tell me). Using windows XP, latest daily build of JBT 3. Have a mysql database with a fixed width field STATE char(2) and some varchar fields. (mysql shows the column type for STATE as char(2)) Seam gen entities generates (in the code) @Column(name = "STATE", length = 2) @Length(max = 2) (similarly for the varchar fields, no difference other than the 2 lengths) In the persistence.xml, seamgen generates Application fails to load with following traceback (partial): Caused by: org.hibernate.HibernateException: Wrong column type: STATE, expected: varchar(2) | at org.hibernate.mapping.Table.validateColumns(Table.java:261) | at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.validateSchema(Configuration.java:1083) | at org.hibernate.tool.hbm2ddl.SchemaValidator.validate(SchemaValidator.java:116) | at org.hibernate.impl.SessionFactoryImpl.<init>(SessionFactoryImpl.java:317) | at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1294) | at org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration.buildEntityManagerFactory(Ejb3Configuration.java:713) I note that in the JBDS 2 Beta 1, the persistence.xml is autogenerated with update, not validate. I can make the error go away by adding columnDefinition="char(2)" to the column attribute. I guess I feel generate entities should generate correct entities in the presence of fixed length character fields. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4195450#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...