findByXxxLike & Wildcards

[matthewadams]

Hi all,

I noticed an abstraction leak that I think merits discussion WRT dynamic finder methods that employ the dynamic finder method keyword "Like". Based on my trials, if I define a method "findByXxx", where "xxx" is a string property of an entity, it looks like SD JPA ultimately uses the SQL "=" operator. If I define "findByXxxLike", it uses SQL's "LIKE" syntax. In both of these cases, the argument given is passed verbatim down through the SQL. In the case of "=", that seems appropriate. In the case of "LIKE", however, I see some issues.

JPQL's LIKE syntax allows for defining the ESCAPE character (see the JPA spec section 4.6.10, "Like Expressions"):

like_expression ::=
string_expression [NOT] LIKE pattern_value [ESCAPE escape_character]

The string_expression must have a string value. The pattern_value is a string literal or a string-valued
input parameter in which an underscore (_) stands for any single character, a percent (%) character
stands for any sequence of characters (including the empty sequence), and all other characters stand for
themselves. The optional escape_character is a single-character string literal or a character-valued
input parameter (i.e., char or Character) and is used to escape the special meaning of the underscore
and percent characters in pattern_value.

In the current SD JPA implementation, it looks like the caller of the dynamic finder method

1. must know which wildcards to use and
2. has no way of specifying the escape character.

Should SD abstract the user from these details or is it a necessary abstraction leak that SD JPA users must use JPQL wildcards and must RTFM for the correct escape character to use, if any?

To solve issue #1 above, perhaps new dynamic finder keywords are in order here, similar to "Like" but instead are "StartingWith", "EndingWith" or "Containing":

// for JPA, uses "%" + value
List<Foo> findByXxxStartingWith(String value);
// for JPA, uses value + "%"
List<Foo> findByXxxEndingWith(String value);
// for JPA, uses "%" + value + "%"
List<Foo> findByXxxContaining(String value);

For issue #2 above, I suppose the current "Like" dynamic finder keyword should treat the given string as a technology-specific expression, and, in the case of SD JPA, should accept "_" & "%" with an escape character of "\".

Thoughts?

-matthew

[matthewadams]

FYI: https://jira.springsource.org/browse/DATACMNS-111