Question

I need to make a search method that uses the JPA Criteria API with multiple parameters.
Now the problem is that not every parameter is required. So some could be null, and they shouldn’t be included in the query. I’ve tried this with the CriteriaBuilder but I couldn’t see how to make it work.

With the Hibernate Criteria API this is fairly easy. Just create the criteria and then add Restrictions.

Criteria criteria = session.createCriteria(someClass.class);
if(someClass.getName() != null) {
   criteria.add(Restrictions.like("name", someClass.getName());
}

How could I achieve the same with JPA’s Criteria API?

Answer 1

Concept is to construct array of javax.persistence.Predicate which contains only predicates we want to use:

Example entity to be queried:

@Entity
public class A {
    @Id private Long id;    
    String someAttribute;
    String someOtherAttribute;
    ...
}

Query itself:

    //some parameters to your method
    String param1 = "1";
    String paramNull = null;

    CriteriaBuilder qb = em.getCriteriaBuilder();
    CriteriaQuery cq = qb.createQuery();
    Root<A> customer = cq.from(A.class);

    //Constructing list of parameters
    List<Predicate> predicates = new ArrayList<Predicate>();

    //Adding predicates in case of parameter not being null
    if (param1 != null) {
        predicates.add(
                qb.equal(customer.get("someAttribute"), param1));
    }
    if (paramNull != null) {
        predicates.add(
                qb.equal(customer.get("someOtherAttribute"), paramNull));
    }
    //query itself
    cq.select(customer)
            .where(predicates.toArray(new Predicate[]{}));
    //execute query and do something with result
    em.createQuery(cq).getResultList();