We Keep Coding

Implementing NULLS LAST with JPA CriteriaBuilder API

Spring/Hibernate/MySQL/JPA here. I have the following code:
public void setOrdering(
SearchRequest searchRequest,
CriteriaQuery query,
CriteriaBuilder builder,
Root<? extends MyEntity> root) {
String sortParam = "reportedOn";
Expression expression = builder.selectCase()
.when(builder.isNull(root.get(sortParam)), root.get(sortParam))
.otherwise(root.get(sortParam));
Order order = (searchRequest.isAscending())
? builder.asc(expression)
: builder.desc(expression);
query.orderBy(order);
}
Basically, I'm trying to implement the CriteriaBuilder/JPA equivalent of:
SELECT
*
FROM
mytable
WHERE
<lots of predicates here>
ORDER BY reported_on IS NULL, reported_on <ASC/DESC>
I already have the WHERE predicates added, I'm just struggling with the query.orderBy(...).
At runtime, when searchRequest.isAscending() is false, the results come back working just fine, with the records that contain a null reported_on value ordered at the end of the results.
But if searchRequest.isAscending() is true, the NULLS LAST attempt does not appear to work at all.

You're mixing up the Spring and JPA APIs, here query is from the JPA API so you need to sort using something like:
CriteriaBuilder cb = ...
Root root = ...
query.orderBy(cb.asc(root.get("reportedOn")));

It does not look like JPA's CriteriaBuilder supports NULLS LAST. I actually got this working using a SQL "hack":
String sortParam = "reportedOn";
Order order = (searchRequest.isAscending())
? builder.desc(builder.neg(root.get(sortParam)))
: builder.desc(root.get(sortParam));
query.orderBy(order);
Basically ORDER BY -reported_on DESC does the same thing as ORDER BY reported_on ASC but it sorts records with NULL reported_on values all the way to the bottom of the search results, which is what NULLS LAST is supposed to do.

JPA CriteriaQuery with LEAST and GREATEST functions

I am have a problem where i need to join two tables using the LEAST and GREATEST functions, but using JPA CriteriaQuery. Here is the SQL that i am trying to duplicate...
select * from TABLE_A a
inner join TABLE_X x on
(
a.COL_1 = least(x.COL_Y, x.COL_Z)
and
a.COL_2 = greatest(x.COL_Y, x.COL_Z)
);
I have looked at CriteriaBuilder.least(..) and greatest(..), but am having a difficult time trying to understand how to create the Expression<T> to pass to either function.

The simplest way to compare two columns and get the least/greatest value is to use the CASE statement.
In JPQL, the query would look like
select a from EntityA a join a.entityXList x
where a.numValueA=CASE WHEN x.numValueY <= x.numValueZ THEN x.numValueY ELSE x.numValueZ END
and a.numValueB=CASE WHEN x.numValueY >= x.numValueZ THEN x.numValueY ELSE x.numValueZ END
You can code the equivalent using CriteriaBuilder.selectCase() but I've never been a big fan of CriteriaBuilder. If requirements forces you to use CriteriaBuilder then please let me know and I can try to code the equivalent.
CriteriaBuilder least/greatest is meant to get the min/max value of all the entries in one column. Let's say you want to get the Entity that had the alphabetically greatest String name. The code would look like
CriteriaBuilder cb = entityManager.getCriteriaBuilder();
CriteriaQuery query = cb.createQuery(EntityX.class);
Root<EntityX> root = query.from(EntityX.class);
Subquery<String> maxSubQuery = query.subquery(String.class);
Root<EntityX> fromEntityX = maxSubQuery.from(EntityX.class);
maxSubQuery.select(cb.greatest(fromEntityX.get(EntityX_.nameX)));
query.where(cb.equal(root.get(EntityX_.nameX), maxSubQuery));
I created a sample Spring Data JPA app that demonstrates these JPA examples at
https://github.com/juttayaya/stackoverflow/tree/master/JpaQueryTest

It turns out that CriteriaBuilder does support calling LEAST and GREATEST as non-aggregate functions, and can be accessed by using the CriteriaBuilder.function(..), as shown here:
Predicate greatestPred = cb.equal(pathA.get(TableA_.col2),
cb.function("greatest", String.class,
pathX.get(TableX_.colY), pathX.get(TableX_.colZ)));

If/Case statement in JPA Criteria Builder

I want to build up a query which search dates on different entites. My structure is:
Contract has date (non nullable)
Employee has date (non nullable)
Employee may have a contract id (nullable)
If a Employee has a contract I want to retrieve the contract date. If an employee does not have a contract then I want to return the Employee date.
My code so far is:
if (inputDate!= null) {
ParameterExpression<Date> exp = criteriaBuilder.parameter(Date.class, "inputDate");
criteria.add(criteriaBuilder.or(
criteriaBuilder.isNull(employee.get("contract")),
criteriaBuilder.lessThanOrEqualTo(employee.<Date>get("creationDate"), exp), criteriaBuilder.lessThanOrEqualTo((employee.join("contract").<Date>get("fromDate")), exp) ));}
This does not seem to work though. I always appear to go into the isNull which I do not expect.
I am happy to look into this some more but I guess my question is whether this is the correct way of going about it. Is it? I have seen a selectCase as well in criteriaBuilder so perhaps that may be a better solution.
Any pointers would be greatly received.
Thanks

Here would be a solution, not sure if it works, but we will manage to get it work with your help :):
ParameterExpression<Date> inputDateExp = criteriaBuilder.parameter(Date.class, "inputDate");
Predicate employeeCreationDate = criteriaBuilder.lessThanOrEqualTo(
employee.<Date>get("creationDate"), inputDateExp);
Predicate contractStartDate = criteriaBuilder.lessThanOrEqualTo(
employee.join("contract").<Date>get("fromDate"), inputDateExp);
criteria.add(
criteriaBuilder.selectCase().when(employee.get("contract").isNull(), employeeCreationDate).otherwise(contractStartDate));
I do not understand why use "inputDate" as Expression instead of a Date? Also, I suggest renaming criteria to c and criteriaBuilder to cb, this would save space and I think it is more comfortable.

I think what you want to do is use Case<Date>, and use Predicate only as first argument to Case#when. Case<Date> is an Expression<Date>, which is what you want to pass into CriteriaQuery#multiselect.
CriteriaQuery<Employee> query = criteriaBuilder.createQuery(Employee.class);
Root<Employee> employee = query.from(Employee.class);
query.multiselect
(
criteriaBuilder.selectCase()
.when(criteriaBuilder.isNull(employee.get("contract")), employee.get("creationDate"))
.otherwise(employee.join("contract").get("fromDate"))
);

How do I use boolean operators with Hibernate Search

I'm learning the Hibernate Search Query DSL, and I'm not sure how to construct queries using boolean arguments such as AND or OR.
For example, let's say that I want to return all person records that have a firstName value of "bill" or "bob".
Following the hibernate docs, one example uses the bool() method w/ two subqueries, such as:
QueryBuilder b = fts.getSearchFactory().buildQueryBuilder().forEntity(Person.class).get();
Query luceneQuery = b.bool()
.should(b.keyword().onField("firstName").matching("bill").createQuery())
.should(b.keyword().onField("firstName").matching("bob").createQuery())
.createQuery();
logger.debug("query 1:{}", luceneQuery.toString());
This ultimately produces the lucene query that I want, but is this the proper way to use boolean logic with hibernate search? Is "should()" the equivalent of "OR" (similarly, does "must()" correspond to "AND")?.
Also, writing a query this way feels cumbersome. For example, what if I had a collection of firstNames to match against? Is this type of query a good match for the DSL in the first place?

Yes your example is correct. The boolean operators are called should instead of OR because of the names they have in the Lucene API and documentation, and because it is more appropriate: it is not only influencing a boolean decision, but it also affects scoring of the result.
For example if you search for cars "of brand Fiat" OR "blue", the cars branded Fiat AND blue will also be returned and having an higher score than those which are blue but not Fiat.
It might feel cumbersome because it's programmatic and provides many detailed options. A simpler alternative is to use a simple string for your query and use the QueryParser to create the query. Generally the parser is useful to parse user input, the programmatic one is easier to deal with well defined fields; for example if you have the collection you mentioned it's easy to build it in a for loop.

You can also use BooleanQuery. I would prefer this beacuse You can use this in loop of a list.
org.hibernate.search.FullTextQuery hibque = null;
org.apache.lucene.search.BooleanQuery bquery = new BooleanQuery();
QueryBuilder qb = fulltextsession.getSearchFactory().buildQueryBuilder()
.forEntity(entity.getClass()).get();
for (String keyword : list) {
bquery.add(qb.keyword().wildcard().onField(entityColumn).matching(keyword)
.createQuery() , BooleanClause.Occur.SHOULD);
}
if (!filterColumn.equals("") && !filterValue.equals("")) {
bquery.add(qb.keyword().wildcard().onField(column).matching(value).createQuery()
, BooleanClause.Occur.MUST);
}
hibque = fulltextsession.createFullTextQuery(bquery, entity.getClass());
int num = hibque.getResultSize();

To answer you secondary question:
For example, what if I had a collection of firstNames to match against?
I'm not an expert, but according to (the third example from the end of) 5.1.2.1. Keyword queries in Hibernate Search Documentation, you should be able to build the query like so:
Collection<String> namesCollection = getNames(); // Contains "billy" and "bob", for example
StringBuilder names = new StringBuilder(100);
for(String name : namesCollection) {
names.append(name).append(" "); // Never mind the space at the end of the resulting string.
}
QueryBuilder b = fts.getSearchFactory().buildQueryBuilder().forEntity(Person.class).get();
Query luceneQuery = b.bool()
.should(
// Searches for multiple possible values in the same field
b.keyword().onField("firstName").matching( sb.toString() ).createQuery()
)
.must(b.keyword().onField("lastName").matching("thornton").createQuery())
.createQuery();
and, have as a result, Persons with (firstName preferably "billy" or "bob") AND (lastName = "thornton"), although I don't think it will give the good ol' Billy Bob Thornton a higher score ;-).

I was looking for the same issue and have a somewhat different issue than presented. I was looking for an actual OR junction. The should case didn't work for me, as results that didn't pass any of the two expressions, but with a lower score. I wanted to completely omit these results. You can however create an actual boolean OR expression, using a separate boolean expression for which you disable scoring:
val booleanQuery = cb.bool();
val packSizeSubQuery = cb.bool();
packSizes.stream().map(packSize -> cb.phrase()
.onField(LUCENE_FIELD_PACK_SIZES)
.sentence(packSize.name())
.createQuery())
.forEach(packSizeSubQuery::should);
booleanQuery.must(packSizeSubQuery.createQuery()).disableScoring();
fullTextEntityManager.createFullTextQuery(booleanQuery.createQuery(), Product.class)
return persistenceQuery.getResultList();

Need help creating JPA criteria query

I'm building my first Java EE web application using Glassfish and JSF. I'm fairly new to the criteria query and I have a query I need to perform but the javaee6 tutorial seems a little thin on examples. Anyway, I'm having a hard time creating the query.
Goal: I want to pull the company with the most documents stored.
Companies have a OneToMany relationship with Documents.
Documents has a ManyToOne relationship with several tables, the "usertype" column distinguishes them.
MySQL query:
SELECT USERID, COUNT(USERID) AS CNT
FROM DOCUMENTS
WHERE USERTYPE="COMPANY"
GROUP BY USERID
ORDER BY CNT DESC
Thanks
--update--
Based on user feedback, here is what I have so far:
CriteriaBuilder cb = em.getCriteriaBuilder();
CriteriaQuery<Documents> cqry = cb.createQuery(Documents.class);
//Intersting Stuff
Root<Documents> root = cqry.from(Documents.class);
Expression userid = root.get("userID");
Expression usertype = root.get("userType");
Expression count = cb.count(userid);
cqry.multiselect(userid, count);
Predicate userType = cb.equal(usertype, "COMPANY");
cqry.where(userType);
cqry.groupBy(userid);
cqry.orderBy(cb.desc(count));
//more boilerplate
Query qry = em.createQuery(cqry);
List<Documents> results = qry.getResultList();
The error I get is:
Exception Description: Partial object queries are not allowed to maintain the cache or be edited. You must use dontMaintainCache().
Typical error, means nothing to me!

Your query doesn't return a complete entity object as you're only selecting two fields of the given table (this is why you're getting an error that says yadayadapartialyadayada).
Your solution is almost right, here's what you need to change to make it work—making it partial.
Instead of a plain CriteriaQuery<...> you have to create a tuple CriteriaQuery<..> by calling CriteriaBuilder.createTupleQuery(). (Basically, you can call CriteriaBuilder.createQuery(...) and pass Tuple.class to it as an argument. Tuple is a sort of wildcard entity class.)
CriteriaBuilder cb = em.getCriteriaBuilder();
CriteriaQuery<Tuple> cq= cb.createTupleQuery();
Root<Documents> root = cq.from(Documents.class);
Expression<Integer> userId = root.get("USERID");
Expression<String> userType = root.get("USERTYPE");
Expression<Long> count = cb.count(userId);
cq.multiselect(userId.alias("USERID"), count.alias("CNT"));
cq.where(cb.equal(userType, "COMPANY");
cq.groupBy(userId);
cq.orderBy(cb.desc(count));
TypedQuery<Tuple> tq = em.createQuery(cq);
for (Tuple t : tq.getResultsList()) {
System.out.println(t.get("USERID"));
System.out.println(t.get("CNT"));
}
(Accessing fields of a Tuple gave me an error if I didn't use aliases for them (in multiselect(...)). This is why I've used aliases, but this can be tackled more cleanly by using JPA 2's Metamodel API, which is described in the specification quite thoroughly. )
The documentation for CriteriaQuery.multiselect(...) describes the behaviour of queries using Tuple objects more deeply.

If you are using Hibernate, this should work:
ProjectionList pl = Projections.projectionList()
.add(Projections.groupProperty("userid"))
.add(Projections.property("userid"))
.add(Projections.count("userid"));
Criteria criteria = session.createCriteria(Document.class)
.add(Restrictions.eq("usertype",usertype))
.setProjection(pl)
.addOrder(Order.desc("cnt"));
Hope it helps!

Take a look into this easy tutorial. It uses JPA2 and Criteria
http://www.jumpingbean.co.za/blogs/jpa2-criteria-api
Regards!

You need to add a constructor to Documents with only userid and count because you will need it on:
cqry.multiselect(userid, count);