Grails: query or criteria against a string/value pairs map property - grails

Grails gives the possibility of creating simple string/value map properties section "Maps of Objects", first paragraph.
I was wondering, is there a way to later query the domain class (using Gorm dynamic finders, criterias or HQL) using the map property as part of the query (i.e adding a condition for the key X to have the value Y)?

After playing with it a bit and almost give up, I discovered the map syntax to (surprisingly) work in HQL. Assuming the class looks like:
class SomeClass {
Map pairKeyProperty
}
You can build queries that look like the following:
select * from SomeClass sc where sc.pairKeyProperty['someKey'] = 'someValue' and sc.pairKeyProperty['someOtherKey'] = 'someOtherValue'
Pretty neat! I still would prefer to use criterias as they are much cleaner to compose, but they seem to not support the same syntax (or I couldn't find it).
I created a sample app in GitHub:
https://github.com/deigote/grails-simple-map-of-string-value-pairs
It can be visisted at:
http://grails-map-of-string-pairs.herokuapp.com/

The form above uses a cross join. To enforce an inner join use
join sc.pairKeyProperty pk1 on index(pk1) = 'someKey'
where 'someValue' in elements(pk1)

Related

PagedResultList .size() and .getTotalCount() return different values in grails gorm

I have the following code
PagedResultList res = myService.getPage(paginateParams, ...)
println res.size() // returns 2
println res.getTotalCount() // returns 1
getPage looks like:
def criteria = MyDomain.createCriteria()
criteria.list(max: paginateParams.max, offset: paginateParams.offset) { // max is 10, offset is 0, sortBy is updatedAt and sortOrder is desc
eq('org', org)
order(paginateParams.sortBy, paginateParams.sortOrder)
}
why do the two method return different values? The documentation doesn't explain the difference, but does mention that getTotalCount is for number of records
currently on grails 2.4.5
edits:
println on res prints out:
res: [
com.<hidden>.MyDomain: 41679f98-a7c5-4193-bba8-601725007c1a,
com.<hidden>.MyDomain: 41679f98-a7c5-4193-bba8-601725007c1a]
Yes, res has a SINGLE object twice - that's the bug I'm trying to fix. How do I know that? I have an primary key on MyDomain's ID, and when I inspect the database, it's also showing one record for this particular org (see my criteria)
edit 2: I found this comment (http://docs.grails.org/2.4.5/ref/Domain%20Classes/createCriteria.html)
listDistinct If subqueries or associations are used, one may end up
with the same row multiple times in the result set. In Hibernate one
would do a "CriteriaSpecification.DISTINCT_ROOT_ENTITY". In Grails one
can do it by just using this method.
Which, if I understand correctly, is their way of saying "list" method doesn't work in this scenario, use listDistinct instead but then they go on to warn:
The listDistinct() method does not work well with the pagination
options maxResult and firstResult. If you need distinct results with
pagination, we currently recommend that you use HQL. You can find out
more information from this blog post.
However, the blog post is a dead link.
Related: GORM createCriteria and list do not return the same results : what can I do?
Not related to actual problem after question edited but this quote seems useful
Generally PagedResultList .size() perform size() on resultList property (in-memory object represent database record), while .getTotalCount() do count query against database. If this two value didn't match your list may contain duplicate.
After viewing related issues (GORM createCriteria and list do not return the same results : what can I do?) I determined that there were several approaches:
Use grails projection groupBy('id') - doesn't work b/c i need the entire object
USe HSQL - Domain.executeQuery - actually this didn't work for my scenario very well because this returns a list, whereas criteria.list returns a PagedResultList from which I previously got totalCount. This solution had me learning HSQL and also made me break up my existing logic into two components - one that returned PagedResultList and one that didn't
Simply keep a set of IDs as I process my PagedResultList and make sure that I didn't have any duplicates.
I ended up going with option 3 because it was quick, didn't require me to learn a new language (HSQL) and I felt that I could easily write the code to do it and I'm not limited by the CPU to do such a unique ID check.

Avoiding subqueries in HQL using Grails

I have two object, a room type and a reservation. Simplified they are:
class Room {
String description
int quantity
}
class Reservation {
String who
Room room
}
I want to query for all rooms along with the number of rooms available for each type. In SQL this does what I want:
select id, quantity, occupied, quantity-coalesce(occupied, 0) as available
from room left join(select room_id, count(room_id) as occupied from reservation)
on id = room_id;
I'm not getting anywhere trying to work out how to do this with HQL.
I'd appreciate any pointers since it seems like I'm missing something fairly fundamental in either HQL or GORM.
The problem here is your trying to represent fields that are not your domain classes like available and occupied. Trying to get HQL\GORM to do this can be a bit a little frustrating, but not impossible. I think you have a couple options here...
1.) Build your domain classes so that there easier to use. Maybe your Room needs to know about it's Reservations via a mapping table or, perhaps write what you want the code to look like and then adjust the design.
For example. Maybe you want your code to look like this...
RoomReservation.queryAllByRoomAndDateBetween(room, arrivalDate, departureDate);
Then you would implement it like this...
class RoomReservation{
...
def queryAllByRoomAndDateBetween(def room, Date arrivalDate, Date departureDate){
return RoomReservation.withCriteria {
eq('room', room)
and {
between('departureDate', arrivalDate, departureDate)
}
}
}
2.) My second thought is... It's okay to use the database for what it's good for. Sometimes using sql in you code is simply the most effective way to do something. Just do it in moderation and keep it centralized and unit tested. I don't suggest you use this approach because you query isn't that complex, but it is an option. I use stored procedures for things like 'dashboard view's' that query millions of objects for summary data.
class Room{
...
def queryReservations(){
def sql = new Sql(dataSoruce);
return sql.call("{call GetReservations(?)}", [this.id]) //<-- stored procedure.
}
}
I'm not sure how you can describe a left join with a subquery in HQL. INn any case you can easily execute raw SQL in grails too, if HQL is not expressive enough:
in your service, inject the dataSource and create a groovy.sql.Sql instance
def dataSource
[...]
def sql= new Sql(dataSource)
sql.eachRow("...."){row->
[...]
}
I know it's very annoying when people try to patronize you into their way of thinking when you ask a question, instead of answering your question or just shut up, but in my opinion, this query is sufficiently complex that I would create a concept for this number in my data structure, perhaps an Availability table associated to the Room, which would keep count not only of the quantity but also of the occupied value.
This is instead of computing it every time you need it.
Just my $.02 just ignore it if it annoys you.

Grails : how to customize order with a sql function?

I want to retrieve the 10 nearest geolocalized objects using Gorm.
To do so, I would like to customize the order() parameter in order to use a get_distance(longitude, latitude, :longitude, :latitude) sql function.
I've been struggling with this all day, does anybody have a hint ?
Thanks !
EDIT
I finally managed to do what I wanted but with a very ugly solution :
I added a sqlProjection in which I put my get_distance() function and was able to order by it.
Adding a projection removes the retrieval of the object properties so I had to explicitly ask for it by adding property projections and I managed to do it with introspection.
Then I had to define the result transformer of the criteria for it to give me domain instances.
If register your function with the hibernate SQL dialect, then you can use it in HQL queries. For example, put this in your bootstrap code:
import org.hibernate.dialect.function.SQLFunctionTemplate
import org.hibernate.Hibernate
def dialect = applicationContext.sessionFactory.dialect
def getDistance = new SQLFunctionTemplate(Hibernate.INTEGER, "get_distance(?1,?2)")
dialect.registerFunction('get_distance', getDistance)
Then you can use it in HQL:
Location.executeQuery(
"""
select id, get_distance(latitude, longitude) as distance
from Location
order by distance
""",
[], [max: 10])
What we did is the following:
Create the query with whatever DB specific operators, but as a view
Create a new domain class object solely to map to the view, thereby allowing you to do GORM criteria queries and the like

How do I deeply eager load an entity with a reference to an instance of a persistent base type (Entity Framework 4)

Above is a simplified version of our domain model. NotificationOrder has a reference to an instance of a sub class (consider ReferenceNumberBase logically abstract).
Problem:
I want a query to return all NotificationOrders that satisfies XYZ and I want that query to eagerly load all referenced instances of CustomerCase (including all related objects of that graph, except Group forget about that issue for the moment).
I've tried searching for a solution to this, but all I've found are solutions to problems equivalent of querying for CustomerCase as a root object directly.
I'd like something like this:
var query = ObjectContext.CreateObjectSet<NotificationOrder>.Where(e => e.NotificationType == "Foo");
return ((ObjectSet<NotificationOrder>) query).Include("ReferenceNumberBase");
However, that won't load the Vehicle instance of CustomerCase or any of the other related objects. How can I express this so EF understands the eager load I want (I'd very much like to avoid multiple roundtrips / notification order)?
NOTE: Since CustomerCase is a derived type I can't do normal transitive include using something like this:
var query = ObjectContext.CreateObjectSet<NotificationOrder>.Where(e => e.NotificationType == "Foo");
return ((ObjectSet<NotificationOrder>) query).Include("ReferenceNumberBase.Vehicle"); //
since the Vehicle property is a member of the derived CustomerCase type, and not the ReferenceNumberBase type and instead we get errors like:
"The EntityType 'Model.ReferenceNumberBase' does not declare a navigation property with the name 'Vehicle'."
Neither can I use query.OfType<CustomerCase>... since the query type is NotificationOrder, and not ReferenceNumberBase (or can I somehow?).
ps. We are using self tracking POCO entities with EF4 (have not upgraded to 4.1 yet)
EDIT: I've searched some more, and as of about a year ago this looks to have been a limitation of the Include() method (at least at that time). Is this accurate and has this been adressed since then? [sources below]
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/adodotnetentityframework/thread/a30351ab-5024-49a5-9eb4-798043a2b75d
http://data.uservoice.com/forums/72025-ado-net-entity-framework-ef-feature-suggestions/suggestions/1057763-inheritance-eager-loading?ref=title
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/594289/in-entity-framework-there-should-be-a-way-to-eager-load-include-navigation-properties-of-a-derived-class

Code re-use with Linq-to-Sql - Creating 'generic' look-up tables

I'm working on an application at the moment in ASP.NET MVC which has a number of look-up tables, all of the form
LookUp {
Id
Text
}
As you can see, this just maps the Id to a textual value. These are used for things such as Colours. I now have a number of these, currently 6 and probably soon to be more.
I'm trying to put together an API that can be used via AJAX to allow the user to add/list/remove values from these lookup tables, so for example I could have something like:
http://example.com/Attributes/Colours/[List/Add/Delete]
My current problem is that clearly, regardless of which lookup table I'm using, everything else happens exactly the same. So really there should be no repetition of code whatsoever.
I currently have a custom route which points to an 'AttributeController', which figures out the attribute/look-up table in question based upon the URL (ie http://example.com/Attributes/Colours/List would want the 'Colours' table). I pass the attribute (Colours - a string) and the operation (List/Add/Delete), as well as any other parameters required (say "Red" if I want to add red to the list) back to my repository where the actual work is performed.
Things start getting messy here, as at the moment I've resorted to doing a switch/case on the attribute string, which can then grab the Linq-to-Sql entity corresponding to the particular lookup table. I find this pretty dirty though as I find myself having to write the same operations on each of the look-up entities, ugh!
What I'd really like to do is have some sort of mapping, which I could simply pass in the attribute name and get out some form of generic lookup object, which I could perform the desired operations on without having to care about type.
Is there some way to do this to my Linq-To-Sql entities? I've tried making them implement a basic interface (IAttribute), which simply specifies the Id/Text properties, however doing things like this fails:
System.Data.Linq.Table<IAttribute> table = GetAttribute("Colours");
As I cannot convert System.Data.Linq.Table<Colour> to System.Data.Linq.Table<IAttribute>.
Is there a way to make these look-up tables 'generic'?
Apologies that this is a bit of a brain-dump. There's surely imformation missing here, so just let me know if you'd like any further details. Cheers!
You have 2 options.
Use Expression Trees to dynamically create your lambda expression
Use Dynamic LINQ as detailed on Scott Gu's blog
I've looked at both options and have successfully implemented Expression Trees as my preferred approach.
Here's an example function that i created: (NOT TESTED)
private static bool ValueExists<T>(String Value) where T : class
{
ParameterExpression pe = Expression.Parameter(typeof(T), "p");
Expression value = Expression.Equal(Expression.Property(pe, "ColumnName"), Expression.Constant(Value));
Expression<Func<T, bool>> predicate = Expression.Lambda<Func<T, bool>>(value, pe);
return MyDataContext.GetTable<T>().Where(predicate).Count() > 0;
}
Instead of using a switch statement, you can use a lookup dictionary. This is psuedocode-ish, but this is one way to get your table in question. You'll have to manually maintain the dictionary, but it should be much easier than a switch.
It looks like the DataContext.GetTable() method could be the answer to your problem. You can get a table if you know the type of the linq entity that you want to operate upon.
Dictionary<string, Type> lookupDict = new Dictionary<string, Type>
{
"Colour", typeof(MatchingLinqEntity)
...
}
Type entityType = lookupDict[AttributeFromRouteValue];
YourDataContext db = new YourDataContext();
var entityTable = db.GetTable(entityType);
var entity = entityTable.Single(x => x.Id == IdFromRouteValue);
// or whatever operations you need
db.SubmitChanges()
The Suteki Shop project has some very slick work in it. You could look into their implementation of IRepository<T> and IRepositoryResolver for a generic repository pattern. This really works well with an IoC container, but you could create them manually with reflection if the performance is acceptable. I'd use this route if you have or can add an IoC container to the project. You need to make sure your IoC container supports open generics if you go this route, but I'm pretty sure all the major players do.

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