How to configure MySQL connection properties with Spring, Hibernate 3.3 and c3p0?

Question

I am currently in the process of upgrading an application from Hibernate 3.2 to Hibernate 3.3. I though I'd stick with the default connection pool (Hibernate changed its default from Commons DBCP to c3p0) as I don't have any good reason to choose a non-default pool. At least non but having used DBCP before.

The upgrade went pretty much without any problems so far. The only thing I can't get to work is passing properties to the underlying MySQL JDBC4Connection. Up to now, I used DBCP's BasicDataSource.addConnectionProperty(String,String) to pass properties (useUnicode=true, characterEncodin=UTF-8, characterSetResults=UTF-8, zeroDateTimeBehavior=convertToNull).

However, I can't find any way to do the same with c3p0 other than including them in the JDBC URL. (That's something I'd like to avoid as I wanna keep the URL configurable without forcing users to include those parameters.)

So far, I've tried to use a ConnectionCustomizer without success. Any other suggestions?

Answer 1

Once again a question I answer myself (another self-learner? yes, please!):

com.mchange.v2.c3p0.ComboPooledDataSource has a property "properties". Interestingly, setting properties after user and password overrides them. But setting properties before user and password works as expected.