I am suprissed that that simple change doesn't work. If I put the meta information at the begining:

<class name="com.schinvest.lra.domain.Company" table="company">

<meta attribute="use-in-equals">true</meta>
<meta attribute="use-in-tostring" inherit="true">true</meta>

<id name="id" type="string">
<column name="company_id" length="6" />

<generator class="assigned" />
</id>

<property name="name" type="string">
<column name="name" length="40" />
</property>
.....
</class>

it works, but if I put it at the end

<class name="com.schinvest.lra.domain.Company" table="company">

<id name="id" type="string">
<column name="company_id" length="6" />

<generator class="assigned" />
</id>

<property name="name" type="string">
<column name="name" length="40" />
</property>
.....
<meta attribute="use-in-equals">true</meta>
<meta attribute="use-in-tostring" inherit="true">true</meta>
</class>

I get the following building error:

BUILD FAILED
P:\LRA\build.xml:387: Failed in building configuration when adding P:\LRA\src\orm\hibernate\com\schinvest\lra\domain\Company.hbm.xml

Total time: 3 seconds

why this happen????, I am respecting the DTD syntax. The idea behind to put such information at the end, is because it is easier to find the regular expresion: </class> using replace Ant task and just replace it by adding the meta information.