Spring Data JPA

External

• https://spring.io/projects/spring-data-jpa
• Spring Data Core JavaDoc https://docs.spring.io/spring-data/commons/docs/current/api/
• Spring Data JPA JavaDoc https://docs.spring.io/spring-data/jpa/docs/current/api/

Internal

• Spring Data
• JPA

Overview

Spring Data JPA is a Spring Data project that assists with implementing JPA-based repositories, which persist data in relational databases. The approach involves writing the repository interface, including custom finder methods, and Spring will provide the implementation automatically.

Spring Persistence Concepts

Spring Persistence Concepts

Spring Boot Support

Playground Examples

Working examples for H2, and both H2 and PostgreSQL is available here:

Playground Spring Data H2 JPA

Playground Spring Data JPA H2 and PostgreSQL

Spring Boot Starter Dependencies

To add support for Spring Data JPA to a Spring Boot project, add the following starter dependency:

dependencies {
    implementation('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa')
}

This starter dependency also transitively includes Hibernate as the JPA implementation.

Add Specific Database Support

Spring Data JPA needs a database to work with. The database drivers should be bundled with the application and should be available on its classpath. Spring Boot does that if its build system is configured with the right dependencies, as shown below:

• H2
• PostgreSQL

Configure Database Access

• H2
• PostgreSQL

Adding Persistence to an Application with Spring Data JPA

Annotate Domain Objects with @Entity

Annotate your domain objects that require persistence with @Entity and designate their primary key field with @Id and optionally with @GeneratedValue. JPA requires each entity class to expose a no-argument constructor, which can be coded manually, or it can be generated with Lombok's @NoArgConstructor:

@NoArgConstructor(access=AccessLevel.PRIVATE, force=true)

From a project layout perspective, we conventionally maintain the classes in a "model" package.

Entity Member Variable Conventions

• Camel-case member variables map by default on '_' separated column names. "createdAt" maps to a "created_at" column.

Define Relationships between Entities

@ManyToMany, etc.

Declare the JPA Repositories

Entities are built, managed and exposed to the application by JPA repositories. JPA repositories are explicitly declared by the application. A Spring Data JPA repository is the embodiment of the Spring repository concept concept. Similarly to a JdbcTemplate-based repository, a JPA repository conceals low-level data access details from the application while exposing Entities to the application. With JdbcTemplate-based repositories the developers need to explicitly declare and implement the methods that should be exposed by the repository, such as findOne(...), findAll() and save(...). With Spring Data JPA repositories, it is sufficient to extend the CrudRepository interface, which already comes with essential methods. Note that similarly to the JdbcTemplate-based repository, it is a good idea to define the repository as an interface in the application domain:

public interface IngredientRepository extends CrudRepository<Ingredient, String> {
}

Unlike JdbcTemplate-based repositories, the developer does NOT need to provide an implementation of the repository interface. Spring Data JPA automatically generates an implementation. All that is needed to be done is to inject the repositories into controllers and other components that need them.

If the default methods are not sufficient, JPA repositories can be customized.

From a project layout perspective, we conventionally maintain the repository interfaces in a "repository" package.

CrudRepository

org.springframework.data.repository.CrudRepository JavaDoc

CrudRepository declares about a dozen methods for CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations. It is type-parameterized, with the first parameter being the entity type of the repository, and the second parameter being the type of the entity ID property.

public interface CrudRepository<T, ID> extends Repository<T, ID> {

  <S extends T> S save(S entity);
  <S extends T> Iterable<S> saveAll(Iterable<S> entities);
  Optional<T> findById(ID id);
  boolean existsById(ID id);
  Iterable<T> findAll();
  Iterable<T> findAllById(Iterable<ID> ids);
  long count();
  void deleteById(ID id);
  void delete(T entity);
  void deleteAll(Iterable<? extends T> entities);
  void deleteAll();
}

Customizing JPA Repositories

Additional methods can be added to the Spring Data JPA repository interface. Spring Data examines any method in the repository interface, parses the method name and attempts to understand the method's purpose in the context of the persisted entity. In essence, Spring Data understands a meta-domain-specific language (DSL) where persistence details are expressed in repository method signatures. In order to be interpretable, repository methods must be composed of a verb, an optional subject, the word "By", and a predicate. If the subject is not specified, it is implied to be the entity associated with the repository.

To fetch one or more entities, use "get", "find" or "read" as verb. To count, use "count".

The subject, if it specified and it is not the type the repository is parameterized with, will be ignored.

The predicate signature may include any of these operators:

• IsAfter, After, IsGreaterThan, GreaterThan
• IsGreaterThanEqual, GreaterThanEqual
• IsBefore, Before, IsLessThan, LessThan
• IsLessThanEqual, LessThanEqual
• IsBetween, Between
• IsNull, Null
• IsNotNull, NotNull
• IsIn, In
• IsNotIn, NotIn
• IsStartingWith, StartingWith, StartsWith
• IsEndingWith, EndingWith, EndsWith
• IsContaining, Containing, Contains
• IsLike, Like
• IsNotLike, NotLike
• IsTrue, True
• IsFalse, False
• Is, Equals
• IsNot, Not
• IgnoringCase, IgnoresCase

As alternatives for "IgnoringCase" and "IgnoresCase", "AllIgnoringCase" or "AllIgnoresCase" can be placed in the method name to ignore case for all String comparisons.

"OrderBy" can be placed at the end of the method name to sort the results by a specified column.

Complex queries can be added with the @Qyery annotation:

@Query("Something s where o.name='blah'")
List<Something> getSomeSomethings();

Database Access Configuration

• H2 Database Access Configuration

Database Initialization

Also see:

Spring Persistence Concepts - Database Initialization

Generic JPA Database Initialization

JPA can generate DDL in the database at startup. The feature is controlled by the configuration property spring.jpa.generate-ddl (true or false), which switches the feature on and off and it is vendor independent. The configuration property is conventionally placed in application.properties or application.yml.

Database Initialization Using Hibernate

https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/html/howto-database-initialization.html#howto-initialize-a-database-using-hibernate

Controlled by spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto. Can be "none", "validate", "update", "create" and "create-drop".

If Hibernate creates the schema from scratch and finds a file named import.sql in the root of the classpath, it will execute it against the database.

The configuration property is conventionally placed in application.properties or application.yml.

Configuration

spring.jpa.show-sql=true

TODO

• How to tell that a JPA repository should use a specific database. How is that configured?
• @EnableJpaRepositories(basePackages = "com.example.dev.myproject.driver.repo")