JPA Criteria Query API and order by null last

Question

My problem is null values must be last order by statement. My code snipshot below. I use javax persistance criteria builder. My query complicated.

import javax.persistence.criteria.CriteriaBuilder;

public Predicate getSomePredicate() {
    Predicate predicate = cb.conjunction();....

    ...predicate.getExpressions().add(cb.and(cb.or(cb.and(v1, v2), cb.and(s1, s2))));

    EOrderByType orderType = EOrderByType.values()[orderBy]
            ;
    switch (orderType) {
    case PRICE: cq.where(predicate).orderBy(cb.asc(root.get("price")));
        break;
    case PRICE_HIGH_TO_LOW: cq.where(predicate).orderBy(cb.desc(root.get("price")));
        break;
    case CONSUPTION: cq.where(predicate).orderBy(cb.desc(root.get("consume")));
        break;
    default:
        break;
    }

    return cq.getRestriction();
}

How to achieve order by price null last with criteria builder ?

Manolete

JPA has no treatment of where NULLS go with ORDER BY. You are reliant on vendor "hints" and don't say what is your JPA vendor – Immeasurable

Answer 1

Hi I almost search all internet pages and then find a solution, you can write switch case order by part. like below: to order by desc if price is null, price value is 1000000, and to order by asc if price is null, price value is 0. if you want these, you can write expression like below.

                EOrderByType orderType = EOrderByType.values()[orderBy];                    
                Expression<Object> queryCase = cb.selectCase().when(cb.isNull(root.get("price")), 100000000).otherwise(root.get("price"));
                Direction dir = Direction.ASC;

                switch (orderType) {
                    case UCUZDAN_PAHALIYA:
                        queryCase = cb.selectCase().when(cb.isNull(root.get("price")), 100000000).otherwise(root.get("price"));
                        break;
                    case PAHALIDAN_UCUZA:
                        queryCase = cb.selectCase().when(cb.isNull(root.get("price")), 0).otherwise(root.get("price"));
                        dir = Direction.DESC;
                        break;
                }

                  cq.where(predicate).orderBy(direction( cb, queryCase, dir));

Manolete

Could you explain direction object ? – Tibiotarsus

Answer 2

This is a bit of an extension to katsu's answer to his own question. I was trying to find a solution to being able to sort most of the columns of a table where some columns are allowed to have null values. I wanted to sort the null values in front of the lowest non-null values when sorting in ascending order and after the lowest non-null values when sorting in descending order. In other words, pretty much the opposite of the (Oracle's) default behavior.

I found other methods that might do this, but this one didn't require me to go outside of Hibernate and JPA 2 persistence, but still get the results I wanted. This is a snippet of code taken from my actual code, but consolidated in one spot and with some names changed. Any syntax, compilation-type errors you see are probably due to that.

// sortByColumn is a String containing the Hibernate version of the column name, which had 
// been assigned as the ID of the table header column of the column by which we are sorting.

// sortAscending is a Boolean object containing Boolean.TRUE if we are to sort in ascending 
// order or Boolean.FALSE or null if we are to sort in descending order. This may seem a 
// bit odd, but in the case we need this for, the default sort column is a release date and 
// reverse chronological order is the most useful in that case.

// Also defined are: CriteriaQuery<SoftwareVersion> criteriaQuery and 
// CriteriaBuilder criteriaBuilder by the typical means.

final Root<SoftwareVersion> softwareVersionRoot = 
    criteriaQuery.from(SoftwareVersion.class);

private static final String EMPTY_STRING = "";

if (sortByColumn != null && sortByColumn.trim().length() > 0) {
  Order sortOrder;
  Expression<String> sortColumnExpression;
  if (sortByColumn.equalsIgnoreCase(SoftwareVersion_.installationFileLength.getName()) || 
      sortByColumn.equalsIgnoreCase(SoftwareVersion_.releaseTimestamp.getName())) {
    // The two non-String fields (exposed to the user) that we don't need to have the
    // lower() function operate upon.
    sortColumnExpression = oemSoftwareVersionRoot.get(sortByColumn);
  } else {
    // We use the lower() function to enforce case insensitive sorting on the columns we
    // show to the user, which are all Strings except as noted above.
    Expression<String> rootExpression = oemSoftwareVersionRoot.get(sortByColumn);
    sortColumnExpression = criteriaBuilder.lower(rootExpression);
  }

  // The columns for installation file name, installation file length and release timestamp
  // are just three of the columns that we allow the user to sort by. However, these three
  // may have null values in the database, and require some special handling.
  if (sortByColumn.equalsIgnoreCase(SoftwareVersion_.installationFileLength.getName()) || 
    sortByColumn.equalsIgnoreCase(SoftwareVersion_.installationFileName.getName()) ||
    sortByColumn.equalsIgnoreCase(SoftwareVersion_.releaseTimestamp.getName())
    ) {
    Expression<Object> queryCase;
    if (sortByColumn.equalsIgnoreCase(SoftwareVersion_.installationFileName.getName())) {
      // Installation file name is a (case insensitive) String
      queryCase = criteriaBuilder.selectCase().when(
        criteriaBuilder.isNull(sortColumnExpression), 
        StringUtil.EMPTY_STRING).otherwise(sortColumnExpression);
    } else if (sortByColumn.equalsIgnoreCase(SoftwareVersion_.releaseTimestamp.getName())) {
      // Release timestamp is a database timestamp
      LocalDateTime dateTime = LocalDateTime.of(1970,1,1,0,0); 
      // Equivalent to Unix epoch time. Note month is 1-12, not 0-11
      queryCase = criteriaBuilder.selectCase().when(
        criteriaBuilder.isNull(sortColumnExpression), 
          Timestamp.valueOf(dateTime)).otherwise(sortColumnExpression);
    } else {
      // Installation file length is a Long (or BigDecimal) computed when the file is uploaded.
      // The user can't set or change it, but can sort by it.
      queryCase = criteriaBuilder.selectCase().when(
        criteriaBuilder.isNull(sortColumnExpression), 
          Long.valueOf(0)).otherwise(sortColumnExpression);
    }

    if (asc != null && asc.booleanValue()) {
      sortOrder = criteriaBuilder.asc(queryCase);
    } else {
      sortOrder = criteriaBuilder.desc(queryCase);
    }
  } else {
    if (asc != null && asc.booleanValue()) {
      sortOrder = criteriaBuilder.asc(sortColumnExpression);
    } else {
      sortOrder = criteriaBuilder.desc(sortColumnExpression);
    }
  }
  criteriaQuery.orderBy(sortOrder);
}

Ulphia