Criteria API – An Example of IN Expressions

1. Overview

We often come across problems where we need to query entities based on whether a single-valued attribute is a member of a given collection.

In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to solve this problem with the help of the Criteria API.

2. Sample Entities

Before we start, let’s take a look at the entities that we’re going to use in our write-up.

We have a DeptEmployee class that has a many-to-one relationship with a Department class:

@Entity
public class DeptEmployee {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.SEQUENCE)
    private long id;

    private String title;

    @ManyToOne
    private Department department;
}

Also, the Department entity that maps to multiple DeptEmployees:

@Entity
public class Department {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.SEQUENCE)
    private long id;

    private String name;

    @OneToMany(mappedBy="department")
    private List<DeptEmployee> employees;
}

3. The CriteriaBuilder.In

First of all, let’s use the CriteriaBuilder interface. The in() method accepts an Expression and returns a new Predicate of the CriteriaBuilder.In type. It can be used to test whether the given expression is contained in the list of values:

CriteriaQuery<DeptEmployee> criteriaQuery = 
  criteriaBuilder.createQuery(DeptEmployee.class);
Root<DeptEmployee> root = criteriaQuery.from(DeptEmployee.class);
In<String> inClause = criteriaBuilder.in(root.get("title"));
for (String title : titles) {
    inClause.value(title);
}
criteriaQuery.select(root).where(inClause);

4. The Expression.In

Alternatively, we can use a set of overloaded in() methods from the Expression interface:

criteriaQuery.select(root)
  .where(root.get("title")
  .in(titles));

In a contrast to the CriteriaBuilder.in(), the Expression.in() accepts a collection of values. As we can see it also simplifies our code a little bit.

5. IN Expressions Using Subqueries

So far, we have used collections with predefined values. Now, let’s take a look at an example when a collection is derived from an output of a subquery.

For instance, we can fetch all DeptEmployees who belong to a Department, with the specified keyword in their name:

Subquery<Department> subquery = criteriaQuery.subquery(Department.class);
Root<Department> dept = subquery.from(Department.class);
subquery.select(dept)
  .distinct(true)
  .where(criteriaBuilder.like(dept.get("name"), "%" + searchKey + "%"));

criteriaQuery.select(emp)
  .where(criteriaBuilder.in(emp.get("department")).value(subquery));

Here, we created a subquery that was then passed into the value() as an expression to search for the Department entity.

6. Conclusion

In this quick article, we have learned different ways to achieve the IN operation using the Criteria API. We have also explored how to use the Criteria API with subqueries.

Finally, the complete implementation for this tutorial is available on GitHub.