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Spring Data JPA - count number or results of query

I want to get the number of results of a query in Spring Data Jpa, using a non-native #Query method. It consists of a basic group by plus a having clause.
My plain query looks like this (analogous example):
select count(*) from (
select 1 from table t
where t.field_a = 1
group by t.id
having count(*) = 2) a;
Since Hibernate 5 does not allow subqueries in the form clause, I have to find a workaround for that. The only one I found is very inefficient as per the query plan:
select count(*) from table t
where t.field_a = 1 and
2 = (select count(*) from table temp where temp.id = t.id);
Is there a way to write a Spring Data JPA query that's as efficient as the first one? I can think of no solution rather than selecting the inner query and taking its size() in java, but that can produce issues due to a ton of redundant data passing through the network.

There is no easy solution to count the results of a subquery in JPA but the a workaround is proposed here https://arjan-tijms.omnifaces.org/2012/06/counting-rows-returned-from-jpa-query.html.
The principle is to build a native query based on the initial Jpa subselect query.

This does the job if you accept to count the elements in java !
Query q = em.createQuery(
"select 1 from table t where field_a = 1 " +
"group by t.id having count(*) = 2");
int count = q.getResultList().size();
(performances depending on the number of lines returned, but the projection is very light : 1)

Design approach for a SQL query builder with Java

In my webapp I need to create a query engine module where the user selects in the view what columns and filters he want and get the datas related to these queries.
So, I have to build SQL dynamic queries with this kind of format :
SELECT {columns} FROM MainTable FULL OUTER JOIN SecondTable ON ... FULL OUTER JOIN ThirdTable ON ... WHERE {filters}
The columns and filters are known at runtime. (read-only)
Actually, I have a big SQL Server view (Mapped entity in Java) which make 3 FULL OUTER JOIN of others SQL server views. And I build the query in the source code by parsing keywords as AND, OR, number, date, text, ...
Finally, I return a response in the front-end module a table with datas.
But, I'm facing performance issues (scalability) with this method and I'm looking for a more efficient way to do that.
Is it possible to split the SELECT query mentionned above in subqueries to improve performances ? Or there is better design approach for that ?
Here the request I actually use (names changed) with Hibernate :
SELECT * FROM BigView "+WHERE+" OPTION(ROBUST PLAN)
(BigView is aggregation of 4 views : RootTable, Table2, Table3, Table4)
Btw, I know "+WHERE+" is a bad practice but this is not the concern of this topic
I thought using this instead (delete BigView in SQL Server and the related entity) but it actually does same thing even if there is a little performance gain with the columns restriction :
SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY id) AS rownum, tmp.* FROM ( SELECT '' AS id, "+columns+" "+
"FROM RootTable FULL OUTER JOIN "+
"Table2 ON RootTable.RT_ID = Table2.RT_N FULL OUTER JOIN "+
"Table3 ON RootTable.RT_ID = Table3.RT_ID FULL OUTER JOIN "+
"Table4 ON RootTable.RT_ID = Table4.RT_N "+
WHERE+" ) AS tmp
My previous deleted question was not enough focused so I hope this one is correct.
EDIT : I add this filter (WHERE clause) to show what can be requested for example :
RT_ID>'10' AND ( Table2_Topic LIKE '%test%' OR Table3_Date=CONVERT(datetime, '24/09/2020', 103) OR ( Table3_N is not null and Table2_ID<>0 ) )

How to separate between data selecting from multiple tables?

I want to search in 16 different tables, but I don't wanna repeat the "select from DB" 16 times; I think that's not really help in performance!!!
I am using:
query="SELECT * FROM table1, table2,..., table16 WHERE id=?";
Is it correct ??
my problem is how to separate between data of tables ??
also maybe I can get from one table two or more results for one "id"; So I want to know which data is from which table !!
.
Best regards,

Your query will not work, because you are trying to join those multiple tables, whereas what you want to do is search (filter) those 16 tables.
You could use a union all to do this in a single query:
select xxx, 'table1' as source_table
from table1
where id = ?
union all
select xxx, 'table2' as source_table
from table2
where id = ?
and so on. The second derived field source_table can be used to determine which table returned which result.

You have to list all fields using aliases for fields with same name, and prefix with table names.
For example :
query = "SELECT table1.id as id_1, table2.id as id_2, ... WHERE id_1 = 23"
Probably a very long query to write, but you have solution to generate and paste it : You can do this for example with FlySpeed SqlQuery (free for personal use)
FlySpeed SqlQuery will generate all aliases for you, and automatically prefix with table names.

A little clarification would help. If all 16 tables have the same fields and you want them in a continuous list, you can use UNION as suggested above. On the other hand, if there are only a few fields that match and you want to compare the values for each table side-by-side, you'll want to use joins and provide aliases with the table names, as also suggested above.
However, looking at the snippet of code you've provided, I'm going to guess that you're either building some kind of stored procedure or else implementing SQL in some other language. If that's the case, how about loading your table names into an array and using a for loop to build the query, such as the following psuedo-code:
tableList = ["table1", "table2"...]
fieldnames = ["field1", "field2"...]
query = "SELECT "
for i = 0 to count(tableList):
for j = 0 to count(fieldnames):
query = query + tablelist[i] + "." + fieldnames[j] + ", "
j++
i++
query = query + "FROM "
for i = 0 to count(tableList):
query = query + tableList[i] + ", "
i++
query = query + "WHERE " ...
And so forth. Much of this depends on what exactly you're looking to do, how often you're looking to do it, and how often the variables (like which tables or fields you're using) are going to change.

Union is not working in HQL [duplicate]

What alternatives do I have to implement a union query using hibernate? I know hibernate does not support union queries at the moment, right now the only way I see to make a union is to use a view table.
The other option is to use plain jdbc, but this way I would loose all my example/criteria queries goodies, as well as the hibernate mapping validation that hibernate performs against the tables/columns.

You could use id in (select id from ...) or id in (select id from ...)
e.g. instead of non-working
from Person p where p.name="Joe"
union
from Person p join p.children c where c.name="Joe"
you could do
from Person p
where p.id in (select p1.id from Person p1 where p1.name="Joe")
or p.id in (select p2.id from Person p2 join p2.children c where c.name="Joe");
At least using MySQL, you will run into performance problems with it later, though. It's sometimes easier to do a poor man's join on two queries instead:
// use set for uniqueness
Set<Person> people = new HashSet<Person>((List<Person>) query1.list());
people.addAll((List<Person>) query2.list());
return new ArrayList<Person>(people);
It's often better to do two simple queries than one complex one.
EDIT:
to give an example, here is the EXPLAIN output of the resulting MySQL query from the subselect solution:
mysql> explain
select p.* from PERSON p
where p.id in (select p1.id from PERSON p1 where p1.name = "Joe")
or p.id in (select p2.id from PERSON p2
join CHILDREN c on p2.id = c.parent where c.name="Joe") \G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
id: 1
select_type: PRIMARY
table: a
type: ALL
possible_keys: NULL
key: NULL
key_len: NULL
ref: NULL
rows: 247554
Extra: Using where
*************************** 2. row ***************************
id: 3
select_type: DEPENDENT SUBQUERY
table: NULL
type: NULL
possible_keys: NULL
key: NULL
key_len: NULL
ref: NULL
rows: NULL
Extra: Impossible WHERE noticed after reading const tables
*************************** 3. row ***************************
id: 2
select_type: DEPENDENT SUBQUERY
table: a1
type: unique_subquery
possible_keys: PRIMARY,name,sortname
key: PRIMARY
key_len: 4
ref: func
rows: 1
Extra: Using where
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Most importantly, 1. row doesn't use any index and considers 200k+ rows. Bad! Execution of this query took 0.7s wheres both subqueries are in the milliseconds.

Use VIEW. The same classes can be mapped to different tables/views using entity name, so you won't even have much of a duplication. Being there, done that, works OK.
Plain JDBC has another hidden problem: it's unaware of Hibernate session cache, so if something got cached till the end of the transaction and not flushed from Hibernate session, JDBC query won't find it. Could be very puzzling sometimes.

I have to agree with Vladimir. I too looked into using UNION in HQL and couldn't find a way around it. The odd thing was that I could find (in the Hibernate FAQ) that UNION is unsupported, bug reports pertaining to UNION marked 'fixed', newsgroups of people saying that the statements would be truncated at UNION, and other newsgroups of people reporting it works fine...
After a day of mucking with it, I ended up porting my HQL back to plain SQL, but doing it in a View in the database would be a good option. In my case, parts of the query were dynamically generated, so I had to build the SQL in the code instead.

I have a solution for one critical scenario (for which I struggled a lot )with union in HQL .
e.g. Instead of not working :-
select i , j from A a , (select i , j from B union select i , j from C) d where a.i = d.i
OR
select i , j from A a JOIN (select i , j from B union select i , j from C) d on a.i = d.i
YOU could do in Hibernate HQL ->
Query q1 =session.createQuery(select i , j from A a JOIN B b on a.i = b.i)
List l1 = q1.list();
Query q2 = session.createQuery(select i , j from A a JOIN C b on a.i = b.i)
List l2 = q2.list();
then u can add both list ->
l1.addAll(l2);

A view is a better approach but since hql typically returns a List or Set... you can do list_1.addAll(list_2). Totally sucks compared to a union but should work.

Perhaps I had a more straight-forward problem to solve. My 'for instance' was in JPA with Hibernate as the JPA provider.
I split the three selects (two in a second case) into multiple select and combined the collections returned myself, effectively replacing a 'union all'.

Hibernate 6 added support for UNION.
So, you can now use UNION in JPQL queries like this:
List<String> topics = entityManager.createQuery("""
select c.name as name
from Category c
union
select t.name as name
from Tag t
""", String.class)
.getResultList();
And you can also also use UNION ALL if there are no duplicates to be removed:
List<String> topics = entityManager.createQuery("""
select c.name as name
from Category c
union all
select t.name as name
from Tag t
""", String.class)
.getResultList();
Besides UNION, you can also use EXCEPT and INTERSECT.

I too have been through this pain - if the query is dynamically generated (e.g. Hibernate Criteria) then I couldn't find a practical way to do it.
The good news for me was that I was only investigating union to solve a performance problem when using an 'or' in an Oracle database.
The solution Patrick posted (combining the results programmatically using a set) while ugly (especially since I wanted to do results paging as well) was adequate for me.

Here is a special case, but might inspire you to create your own work around. The goal here is to count the total number of records from two different tables where records meet a particular criteria. I believe this technique will work for any case where you need to aggregate data from across multiple tables/sources.
I have some special intermediate classes setup, so the code which calls the named query is short and sweet, but you can use whatever method you normally use in conjunction with named queries to execute your query.
QueryParms parms=new QueryParms();
parms.put("PROCDATE",PROCDATE);
Long pixelAll = ((SourceCount)Fetch.row("PIXEL_ALL",parms,logger)).getCOUNT();
As you can see here, the named query begins to look an aweful lot like a union statement:
#Entity
#NamedQueries({
#NamedQuery(
name ="PIXEL_ALL",
query = "" +
" SELECT new SourceCount(" +
" (select count(a) from PIXEL_LOG_CURR1 a " +
" where to_char(a.TIMESTAMP, 'YYYYMMDD') = :PROCDATE " +
" )," +
" (select count(b) from PIXEL_LOG_CURR2 b" +
" where to_char(b.TIMESTAMP, 'YYYYMMDD') = :PROCDATE " +
" )" +
") from Dual1" +
""
)
})
public class SourceCount {
#Id
private Long COUNT;
public SourceCount(Long COUNT1, Long COUNT2) {
this.COUNT = COUNT1+COUNT2;
}
public Long getCOUNT() {
return COUNT;
}
public void setCOUNT(Long COUNT) {
this.COUNT = COUNT;
}
}
Part of the magic here is to create a dummy table and insert one record into it. In my case, I named it dual1 because my database is Oracle, but I don't think it matters what you call the dummy table.
#Entity
#Table(name="DUAL1")
public class Dual1 {
#Id
Long ID;
}
Don't forget to insert your dummy record:
SQL> insert into dual1 values (1);

As Patrick said, appending the LISTs from each SELECT would be a good idea but remember that it acts like UNION ALL. To avoid this side effect, just control if the object is already added in final collection or not. If no, then add it.
Something else that you should care about is that if you have any JOIN in each SELECT, the result would be a list of object array(List<Object[]>) so you have to iterate over it to only keep the object that you need.
Hope it works.

How to convert nested SQL to HQL

I am new to the Hibernate and HQL. I want to write an update query in HQL, whose SQL equivalent is as follows:
update patient set
`last_name` = "new_last",
`first_name` = "new_first"
where id = (select doctor_id from doctor
where clinic_id = 22 and city = 'abc_city');
doctor_id is PK for doctor and is FK and PK in patient. There is one-to-one mapping.
The corresponding Java classes are Patient (with fields lastName, firstName, doctorId) and Doctor (with fields doctorId).
Can anyone please tell what will be the HQL equivalent of the above SQL query?
Thanks a lot.

String update = "update Patient p set p.last_name = :new_last, p.first_name = :new_first where p.id = some (select doctor.id from Doctor doctor where doctor.clinic_id = 22 and city = 'abc_city')";
You can work out how to phrase hql queries if you check the specification. You can find a section about subqueries there.

I don't think you need HQL (I know, you ask that explicitly, but since you say you're new to Hibernate, let me offer a Hibernate-style alternative). I am not a favor of HQL, because you are still dealing with strings, which can become hard to maintain, just like SQL, and you loose type safety.
Instead, use Hibernate criteria queries and methods to query your data. Depending on your class mapping, you could do something like this:
List patients = session.CreateCriteria(typeof(Patient.class))
.createAlias("doctor", "dr")
.add(Restrictions.Eq("dr.clinic_id", 22))
.add(Restrictions.Eq("dr.city", "abc_city"))
.list();
// go through the patients and set the properties something like this:
for(Patient p : patients)
{
p.lastName = "new lastname";
p.firstName = "new firstname";
}
Some people argue that using CreateCriteria is difficult. It takes a little getting used to, true, but it has the advantage of type safety and complexities can easily be hidden behind generic classes. Google for "Hibernate java GetByProperty" and you see what I mean.

update Patient set last_name = :new_last , first_name = :new_first where patient.id = some(select doctor_id from Doctor as doctor where clinic_id = 22 and city = abc_city)

There is a significant difference between executing update with select and actually fetching the records to the client, updating them and posting them back:
UPDATE x SET a=:a WHERE b in (SELECT ...)
works in the database, no data is transferred to the client.
list=CreateCriteria().add(Restriction).list();
brings all the records to be updated to the client, updates them, then posts them back to the database, probably with one UPDATE per record.
Using UPDATE is much, much faster than using criteria (think thousands of times).

Since the question title can be interpreted generally as "How to use nested selects in hibernate", and the HQL syntax restricts nested selects only to be in the select- and the where-clause, I would like to add here the possibility to use native SQL as well. In Oracle - for instance - you may also use a nested select in the from-clause.
Following query with two nested inner selects cannot be expressed by HQL:
select ext, count(ext)
from (
select substr(s, nullif( instr(s,'.', -1) +1, 1) ) as ext
from (
select b.FILE_NAME as s from ATTACHMENT_B b
union select att.FILE_NAME as s from ATTACHEMENT_FOR_MAIL att
)
)
GROUP BY ext
order by ext;
(which counts, BTW, the occurences of each distinct file name extension in two different tables).
You can use such an sql string as native sql like this:
#Autowired
private SessionFactory sessionFactory;
String sql = ...
SQLQuery qry = sessionFactory.getCurrentSession().createSQLQuery(sql);
// provide an appropriate ResultTransformer
return qry.list();