Adding Hibernate native SQL features into your Spring Data Repository

JPA provides @NamedNativeQuery for you to use native SQL. However, the usage is not so convenient, especially when you need to map multiple entities in your native SQL. You have to define a set of SqlResultSetMapping mapping which is quite error prone.

For those who have used Hibernate native SQL features before, you will find that it is much more easier to use than JPA's @NamedNativeQuery. In recent projects, I am using Spring Data JPA. I have added hibernate native query features to my Spring Data base repostory. You can now perform native query in JPA without SqlResultSetMapping.

1. Add you cusomt annotation @NativeQueries and @NativeQuery

@Target(ElementType.TYPE)
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface NativeQueries {
 NativeQuery[] queries() default  {};
}

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface NativeQuery {
 String name()  default "";
 String sql()  default "";
}

2. Add the method "queryNatively" in base Spring Data Repository.

If you do not know how to add custom behaviour to your Spring data JPA base repository, please see my previous post for how to customize your Spring data JPA base repository for detail. You can see in previous post that I intentionally expose the repository interface (i.e. the springDataRepositoryInterface property) in the GenericRepositoryImpl. This small tricks enable me to access the annotation in the repository interface easily.

public List queryNatively(String nativeQueryName, LinkedHashMap<String,Class<?>> inEntityClasses, Map inParams ){
 SQLQuery query =  this.createHibernateNativeQuery( nativeQueryName,  inParams );
     //add entities
     if (inEntityClasses!=null) {      
      for (Object key: inEntityClasses.keySet()) {
    String entityClassAlias = key.toString();
    Class<?> entityClass = (Class<?>)inEntityClasses.get(key);  
    query.addEntity(entityClassAlias,entityClass);
         }    
     }
             
     //add parameter
     if (inParams != null){
      for (Object key: inParams.keySet()) {
    String queryParamName = key.toString();
    Object queryParamValue = inParams.get(key);
    query.setParameter(queryParamName, queryParamValue);
         }
     }  
     return (query!=null)? query.list() : null ;
  }
    

  private SQLQuery createHibernateNativeQuery (String nativeQueryName, Map inParams ){
     if (GenericRepository.class.isAssignableFrom(getSpringDataRepositoryInterface())) {
      
      Annotation nativeQueryAnn = getSpringDataRepositoryInterface().getAnnotation(NativeQueries.class);
      if(nativeQueryAnn != null){
       NativeQueries nativeQueries = (NativeQueries)nativeQueryAnn;
       NativeQuery[] queries  = nativeQueries.queries();
    for (NativeQuery sqlquery : queries) { 
          
     if (StringUtils.equals(nativeQueryName, sqlquery.name())) {
      String sql  = sqlquery.sql();
      
      Session hiernateSess = em.unwrap(Session.class);
         SQLQuery query = hiernateSess.createSQLQuery(sql);
         
         //add parameter
         if (inParams != null){
          for (Object key: inParams.keySet()) {
        String queryParamName = key.toString();
        Object queryParamValue = inParams.get(key);
        query.setParameter(queryParamName, queryParamValue);
             }
         }  
         
         return query;
     }    
    }
      }
     
     }
     return null;
  }

3. Example Usage

In your repositry interface, define which native SQL queries you want to use through your @NativeQueries and @NativeQuery annotation. The usage is just similar to calling hibernate native query features. You could just see the hibernate alias and property references.

@NativeQueries (
 queries = {
   @NativeQuery(name="query1", 
         sql="SELECT {cat.*}, {mother.*}  FROM CATS c, CATS m WHERE c.MOTHER_ID = c.ID and c.name =  :catName "),
   @NativeQuery(name="query2", 
         sql="SELECT {cat.*} FROM CATS where c.ID =  :catName")       
 }
)
public interface CatRepository extends GenericRepository<Cat, Long> {
}

In your service or business class that inject your repository, you could just simply call the queryNatively() method to perform native SQL query.

@Service
public class CatService {
 
 @Inject
 private CatRepository catRepository;
 
 public List<Cat> searchCat( String catName) {
    
  List<Cat> catList;
 
  // Add entity mapping for your query
  HashMap<String, Object> inParams = new HashMap<String, Object>();
  inParams.put("catName", "Felix");
  
  
  // Prepare parameters for your native sql
  LinkedHashMap<String, Object> entityMap = new LinkedHashMap<String, Object>();
  entityMap.put("cat", Cat.class);
  entityMap.put("mother",Mother.class);
 

 
  catList = catRepository.queryNatively(
    "query1", "",entityParam);
 
  return catList;
 }
}