Question

I am using a NamedParameterJdbcTemplate, but found that this problem is in the underlying JdbcTemplate class, so I will show the problem as it occurs with the JdbcTemplate (so let’s not worry about the safety of the SQL query here).

Here’s what I am trying to achieve:

String sql = "SELECT * FROM clients ORDER BY ? ?";
    return jdbcTemplate.query(sql,
            new Object[] { "name", "ASC" },
            new ClientResultSetExtractor());

I expected the first place-holder to be replaced with “name” and the second with “ASC”, which would create the valid SQL query:

SELECT * FROM clients ORDER BY name ASC

But unfortunately, running that jdbc query does not work:

ERROR:  syntax error at or near "$2" at character 35
STATEMENT:  SELECT * FROM clients ORDER BY $1 $2

What am I doing wrong?

EDIT

I had assumed the problem was the two placeholders in sequence, but even when I remove the first one, it still won’t accept just the last one, which should tell the query whether to sort in ASC or DESC order. Is this a bug, and if not, why the heck is this not acceptable????

Answer 1

You’re trying to use parameters incorrectly.

Parameters are not column names or SQL statement keywords. They’re data content (eg., WHERE LastName = ? is a valid parameterized statement, WHERE ? = 'Smith' is not).