Springboot: What is the best way to search for a List of an entity using more than one of its characteristics - spring-boot

Question

I am developing a web application in spring-boot, where a user can search for users using a search field. The users being searched (which depends on the value typed into the input field) will be queried according to their username, first name and last-name. This is my UserModel :
#Component
#Entity
#Table(name = "Users")
public class User extends DefaultEntity {
#Column(name = "FirstName")
#NotNull(message = "Enter a FirstName")
private String firstName;
#Column(name = "LastName")
#NotBlank(message = "Enter a LastName")
private String lastName;
#Column(unique = true,name = "UserName")
#NotBlank(message = "Enter a UserName")
private String userName;
#Column(unique = true, name = "Email")
#NotBlank(message = "Please enter an Email address")
#Email(message = "Enter a valid Email")
private String email;
#Column(name = "Password")
#NotBlank(message = "Enter a Password")
private String password;
#Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
#Column(name = "Gender")
private Gender gender;
#Column(name = "Address")
#NotBlank(message = "Please enter your Home Address")
private String address;
#Column(name = "Country")
#NotBlank(message = "Please enter your Country")
private String country;
#Column(name = "Picture")
private String picture;
#Column(unique = true, name = "PhoneNumber") //make this accept only numbers
private String phoneNumber;
#Column(name = "Bio")
private String bio;
#Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
#Column(name = "OnlineStatus")
private OnlineStatus onlineStatus;
#Enumerated(EnumType.STRING)
#Column(name = "UserType")
private UserType userType;
#Column(name = "Money")
private double money;
//#MapsId()
#OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, fetch = FetchType.EAGER)
#JoinColumn(name = "playerstats")
private PlayerStats playerStats;
//columnDefinition = "tinyint default false"
#Column(name = "locked",columnDefinition = "BOOL default false")
private Boolean locked;
#Transient
private MultipartFile file;
public String getFirstName() {
return firstName;
}
public User setFirstName(String firstName) {
this.firstName = firstName;
return this;
}
public String getLastName() {
return lastName;
}
public User setLastName(String lastName) {
this.lastName = lastName;
return this;
}
public String getUserName() {
return userName;
}
public User setUserName(String userName) {
this.userName = userName;
return this;
}
public String getEmail() {
return email;
}
public User setEmail(String email) {
this.email = email;
return this;
}
public String getPassword() {
return password;
}
public User setPassword(String password) {
this.password = password;
return this;
}
public Enum.Gender getGender() {
return gender;
}
public User setGender(Enum.Gender gender) {
this.gender = gender;
return this;
}
public String getAddress() {
return address;
}
public User setAddress(String address) {
this.address = address;
return this;
}
public String getCountry() {
return country;
}
public User setCountry(String country) {
this.country = country;
return this;
}
public String getPicture() {
return picture;
}
public User setPicture(String picture) {
this.picture = picture;
return this;
}
public String getBio() {
return bio;
}
public User setBio(String bio) {
this.bio = bio;
return this;
}
public Enum.OnlineStatus getOnlineStatus() {
return onlineStatus;
}
public User setOnlineStatus(Enum.OnlineStatus onlineStatus) {
this.onlineStatus = onlineStatus;
return this;
}
public Enum.UserType getUserType() {
return userType;
}
public User setUserType(Enum.UserType userType) {
this.userType = userType;
return this;
}
public double getMoney() {
return money;
}
public User setMoney(double money) {
this.money = money;
return this;
}
public String getPhoneNumber() {
return phoneNumber;
}
public User setPhoneNumber(String phoneNumber) {
this.phoneNumber = phoneNumber;
return this;
}
public MultipartFile getFile() {
return file;
}
public User setFile(MultipartFile file) {
this.file = file;
return this;
}
public PlayerStats getPlayerStats() {
return playerStats;
}
public User setPlayerStats(PlayerStats playerStats) {
this.playerStats = playerStats;
return this;
}
public Boolean getLocked() {
return locked;
}
public void setLocked(Boolean locked) {
this.locked = locked;
}
}
this is my method for querying the usermodel in my UserRepository :
#Repository
public interface UserRepository extends JpaRepository<User,Long> {
Page<User> findUsersByUserNameContainingOrFirstNameContainingOrLastNameContaining(String UserName, String FirstName, String LastName, Pageable pageable);
}
My question: Is there a better way or more efficient way to achieve querying the user entity ?

Answer 1

As mentioned in the comments, what you're looking for is a fuzzy search. This is not something you can easily do within a database, but there are separate search engines that you can use:
Apache Solr (platform based on Apache Lucene)
ElasticSearch
Hibernate Search (Hibernate integration with Apache Lucene)
...
When using such solution, you'll have to index your entities into your search engine as well. Spring Data can help you with that since there is also a library for Solr.
First of all you need a new class that represents how your entity will look like in Solr. Be aware that you want to "flatten" everything if you would have nested relations:
#Document
public class UserDocument {
#Id
#Indexed("id")
private String id;
#Indexed("firstName")
private String firstName;
#Indexed("lastName")
private String lastName;
#Indexed("userName")
private String userName;
// ...
}
After that, you can write a repository like you're used to with Spring Data:
public interface UserDocumentRepository extends SolrCrudRepository<UserDocument, String> {
#Query("userName:?0 OR firstName:?0 OR lastName:?0")
List<UserDocument> findAll(String searchTerm);
}
After that, you can do something like this:
public User create(User input) {
// Create user in database
documentRepository.save(new UserDocument(input.getFirstName(), input.getLastName(), input.getUserName());
}
And you can query for fuzzy searches by using the repository as well:
documentRepository.findAll("vickz~3");
This will use the query that I just wrote, and will look first firstnames, lastnames or usernames containing vickz. The ~3 at the end is a special syntax to indicate that the name can be 3 characters different from the one I just used (= edit distance).
However, this will return the UserDocument Solr entities. If you want to get the entities, you'll have to look them up as well, which can be done by their username:
List<String> usernames = documentRepository
.findAll("vickz~3")
.stream()
.map(UserDocument::getUserName)
.collect(Collectors.toList());
repository.findByUsername(usernames); // Look in database for users matching those usernames