Question

Given the following Oracle sql query cooked for a PreparedStatement:

SELECT *
FROM my_table
WHERE field1 = 'foo'
and field2 =ANY (substr( ? , 1, 2) || '00000000',
                 substr( ? , 1, 4) || '000000',
                 substr( ? , 1, 6) || '0000',
                 substr( ? , 1, 8) || '00',
                 ?
                )

I want to translate to a JPQL query. Reading the JPQL doc, substr becomes substring
and ANY stays as it is. In JPQL ANY expects a subquery.

How can I change the list into a subquery ? or should I use IN operator or should I generate a JPQL string with a bunch of OR conditions in it ?

Oracle 10gR2
Java 5
JPA 2

Answer 1

Considering that = ANY(...) is equivalent to IN (...) in SQL, you can safely use IN.

In fact, the IN predicate is defined in terms of the ANY predicate. Excerpt of the SQL 1992 standard:

8.4 <in predicate>

[…]

<in predicate> ::=
    <row value constructor>
      [ NOT ] IN <in predicate value>

[…]

2) Let RVC be the <row value constructor> and let IPV be the <in predicate value>.

[…]

4) The expression

  RVC IN IPV

is equivalent to

  RVC = ANY IPV  

Then again, the ANY / SOME <quantified comparison predicate> operators are defined in a way similar to a bunch of OR connected predicates. Hence the answer is: You can use both IN or OR-connected predicates.

Note: While this answer explains things how they are in SQL, I’m pretty sure something similar applies to JPQL as well.