Why is "annotatedClasses" needed if there is @Entity?
Use the docs, Luke!
[...]Example for an AnnotationSessionFactoryBean bean definition:
<bean id="sessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.annotation.AnnotationSessionFactoryBean"> <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/> <property name="annotatedClasses"> <list> <value>test.package.Foo</value> <value>test.package.Bar</value> </list> </property></bean>Or when using classpath scanning for autodetection of entity classes:
<bean id="sessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.annotation.AnnotationSessionFactoryBean"> <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/> <property name="packagesToScan" value="test.package"/></bean>As you can see you have a choice between defining all classes explicitly or only the package for scanning. <context:component-scan/> does not recognize Hibernate/JPA annotations and hence has no effect.