spring jpa projection nested bean - spring

Question

is it possible to have a projection with nested collection with Spring JPA?
I have the following 2 simple entity (to explain the problem)
#Entity
#Table(name = "person")
public class Person implements Serializable {
private Integer id;
private String name;
#OneToMany
private List<Address> addressList = new ArrayList<>();
}
#Entity
#Table(name = "address")
public class Address implements Serializable {
private Integer id;
private String city;
private String street;
}
Is it possible to have a projection of Person with following attributes filled in ? {person.name, address.city}
I might be wrong in semantics of word Projection. but the problem is what i need to achieve. Maybe it is not possible with Projection, but is there another way to achieve the end goal? Named Entity graph perhaps ?
P.S. please suggest a solution for Spring JPA not Spring Jpa REST
thanks in advance

Answer 1

You're right, Entity Graphs serve this exact purpose - control field loading.
Create entity graphs dynamically from the code or annotate target entities with Named Entity Graphs and then just use their name.
Here is how to modify your Person class to use Named Entity Graphs:
#Entity
#Table(name = "person")
#NamedEntityGraph(name = "persion.name.with.city",
attributeNodes = #NamedAttributeNode(value = "addressList", subgraph = "addresses.city"),
subgraphs = #NamedSubgraph(name = "addresses.city", attributeNodes = #NamedAttributeNode("city")))
public class Person implements Serializable {
private Integer id;
private String name;
#OneToMany
private List<Address> addressList;
}
And then when loading your person:
EntityGraph graph = em.getEntityGraph("person.name.with.city");
Map hints = new HashMap();
hints.put("javax.persistence.fetchgraph", graph);
return em.find(Person.class, personId, hints);
The same applies for queries, not only em.find method.
Look this tutorial for more details.

Answer 2

I think that that's not usual scenario of Data JPA usage. But you can achieve your goal with pure JPQL:
SELECT a.street, a.person.name FROM Address a WHERE …
This solution has 2 drawbacks:
It forces you to have bidirectional relationship Address ←→ Person
It returns List
Another solution (and that's preferred JPA way) is to create DTO like this:
class MyPersonDTO {
private String personName;
private List<String> cities;
public MyPersonDTO(String personName, List<Address> adresses) {
this.personName = personName;
cities = adresses
.stream()
.map(Address::getCity)
.collect(Collectors.toList());
}
}
And the execute JPQL query like this:
SELECT NEW package.MyPersonDTO(p.name, p.addressList) FROM Person p WHERE …
Return type will be List<MyPersonDTO> in that case.
Of course you can use any of this solutions inside #Query annotation and it should work.