Ok, this mini-hack isn’t pretty but it solves an issue that I have seen come up many times in Java. You’re trying to add a method to an object that you want Hibernate to persist. Let’s assume that your object is an elevator and it has the following real properties:

• Current floor (int)
• Hours in use (int)
• Pounds in elevator (int)

You want to add a method that tells you how many days it has been in use. Normally you’d do this:

public double getDaysInUse() {
  return this.hoursInUse / 24.0;
}

However, if you do that you get the dreaded “PropertyNotFoundException: Could not find a setter” error. How do we fix this? Simply with a throw away parameter like this:

public double getDaysInUse(int unused) {
  return this.hoursInUse / 24.0;
}

And there you have it. No more error! I’m sure there’s a better way and when I find it I’ll post again but for now this does the trick.