Question

I have two classes: A and B like this.

public Class A {
    public B b;
    // Setter and Getter
}

public Class B {
    String code;
    // Setter and Getter
}

I want to have a list of A loaded from database, sorted by B.code. But the problem is when an instance of A has null value for its b, it is ignored, and it is not loaded.

What should be done here? A brief hint would suffice.

UPDATED

Here is my code:

DetachedCriteria cr = DetachedCriteria.forClass(A.class, "a");
cr.createAlias("a.b", "b");
cr.addOrder(Order.asc("b.code"));
// something like cr.list();

Answer 1

By default createAlias(String associationPath, String alias) generates an INNER join but here you need a LEFT_OUTER join so use the following instead :

cr.createAlias("a.b", "b", CriteriaSpecification.LEFT_JOIN);