### 15.32. Entity type

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We can also refer to the type of an entity as an expression.
This is mainly useful when dealing with entity inheritance hierarchies.
The type can expressed using a `TYPE` function used to refer to the type of an identification variable representing an entity.
The name of the entity also serves as a way to refer to an entity type.
Additionally, the entity type can be parameterized, in which case the entity&#8217;s Java Class reference would be bound as the parameter value.

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<div class="title">Example 388. Entity type expression examples</div>
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<pre class="prettyprint highlight">`List&lt;Payment&gt; payments = entityManager.createQuery(
    "select p " +
    "from Payment p " +
    "where type(p) = CreditCardPayment", Payment.class )
.getResultList();
List&lt;Payment&gt; payments = entityManager.createQuery(
    "select p " +
    "from Payment p " +
    "where type(p) = :type", Payment.class )
.setParameter( "type", WireTransferPayment.class)
.getResultList();`</pre>
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HQL also has a legacy form of referring to an entity type, though that legacy form is considered deprecated in favor of `TYPE`.
The legacy form would have used `p.class` in the examples rather than `type(p)`.
It is mentioned only for completeness.

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