I have recently started using Spring boot, and have run into a bit of a problem. before, when i was just using Spring data with hibernate and JPA, I could create a hibernate.cfg.xml file that would give a bunch of configuration that could be passed to a config object and then ultimately create a SessionFactory object that would create a Session object that could be used to pass the query to hibernate:
package util;
import org.hibernate.SessionFactory;
import org.hibernate.boot.registry.StandardServiceRegistryBuilder; 
import org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration;
public class HibernateUtil {
    private static final SessionFactory sessionFactory = buildSessionFactory();
    private static SessionFactory buildSessionFactory() { 
        try {
        // Create the SessionFactory from hibernate.cfg.xml
        Configuration configuration = new Configuration().configure("hibernate.cfg.xml"); return configuration.buildSessionFactory( new
        StandardServiceRegistryBuilder().applySettings( configuration.getProperties() ).build() ); 
        }
        catch (Throwable ex) {
        // Make sure you log the exception, as it might be swallowed System.err.println("Initial SessionFactory creation failed." + ex); throw new ExceptionInInitializerError(ex);
        } 
    }
    public static SessionFactory getSessionFactory() { return sessionFactory; }
}
hibernate.cfg.xml
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
 <!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC
    "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD 3.0//EN" 
    "http://www.hibernate.org/dtd/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-configuration> 
    <session-factory>
        <!-- Database connection settings -->
        <property name="connection.driver_class">com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</property> 
        <property name="connection.url">jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/hello-world</property> 
        <property name="connection.username">root</property>
        <property name="connection.password">password</property>
        <!-- SQL dialect -->
        <property name="dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</property> 
        <!-- Create/update tables automatically using mapping metadata -->
        <property name="hbm2ddl.auto">update</property> 
        <!-- Use Annotation-based mapping metadata -->
        <mapping class="entity.Author"/> 
        <mapping class="entity.Article"/> 
    </session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>
Main.java
    public class HelloWorldClient {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Session session = HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory().openSession(); 
        Transaction txn = session.getTransaction();
        EntityManagerFactory emf = Persiscance.createEntityManagerFactory("hibernate.cfg.xml");
        EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();
        EntityTransaction txn = em.getTransaction();
        try {
            txn.begin();
            Author author = new Author("name", listOfArticlesWritten);
            Article article = new Article("Article Title", author);
            session.save(author);
            session.save(article);
            Query query = session.createQuery("select distinct a.authorName from Article s
                                                where s.author like "Joe%" and title = 'Spring boot');
            List<Article> articles = query.list();
            txn.commit();
        } catch(Exception e) {
            if(txn != null) { txn.rollback(); }
            e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            if(session != null) { session.close(); } }
    } 
}
This is where the issue appears. I don't know how to avoid creating a hibernate.cfg.xml file or session factory for custom queries. in the Spring guides page, and some tutorials i have worked through, they take their DAO and extend the CrudRepository interface which gives a bunch of methods already, as well as a way to name the method so that Hibernate can build the sql on its own.
what i am trying to accomplish, at least in this post is to be able to execute the above query in spring boot. I can create a properties file
application.properties
# ===============================
# = DATA SOURCE
# ===============================
# Set here configurations for the database connection
spring.datasource.url = jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/spring-boot-demo
spring.datasource.username = test
spring.datasource.password = test
# Mysql connector
spring.datasource.driverClassName = com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
# ===============================
# = JPA / HIBERNATE
# ===============================
# Specify the DBMS
spring.jpa.database = MYSQL
# Show or not log for each sql query
spring.jpa.show-sql = true
# Ddl auto must be set to "create" to ensure that Hibernate will run the
# import.sql file at application startup
#create-drop| update | validate | none
spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto = update
# SQL dialect for generating optimized queries
spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.dialect = org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5Dialect
# ===============================
# = THYMELEAF
# ===============================
spring.thymeleaf.cache = false
#debug=true
I can move all but the mapping to a properties file, but then I am unclear how to write the query because there is no longer a session object.
 
     
    