I tried to use the following options in CMP deployment:

<create-table>true</create-table>
<alter-table>true</alter-table>

The deployment is deployed to:

JBoss 4.0.1 + MySQL 4.x + WindowsXP

I found that the app server generates an exception and
the CMP Entity Beans cannot be deployed. The exception
is caused by the SQL that trying to add a column to an
existing column.

Finally I figure out in the docs that the alter table
feature compares column names in uppercases so that the
lower case column names in default mapping cause trouble.

I tried to dig into the source codes and figure the
comparison is made to DB column names and uppercased
column names. I just wonder why not compare both names
in uppercase, but only one in uppercase and the other not?

I already make a patch for myself which make both names
to uppercase before comparison.

During the investigation on this issue, I also found that
the code may throw a null pointer exception when checking to
add an index to a CMR-field.

I have already make a patch.