JPQL: cast Long to String to perform LIKE search

Question

I have the following JPQL query:

SELECT il
FROM InsiderList il
WHERE ( il.deleteFlag IS NULL OR il.deleteFlag = '0' )
  AND il.clientId = :clientId
  AND (    LOWER( il.name ) LIKE :searchTerm
        OR il.nbr LIKE :searchTerm
        OR LOWER( il.type ) LIKE :searchTerm
        OR LOWER( il.description ) LIKE :searchTerm )

The customer wants us to be able to search be the nbr field, which is a java.lang.Long.

Q:

How do you perform a LIKE search on a java.lang.Long using JPQL?

Solution 1

You can use the CAST in HQL:

SELECT il
FROM InsiderList il
WHERE ( il.deleteFlag IS NULL OR il.deleteFlag = '0' )
  AND il.clientId = :clientId
  AND (    LOWER( il.name ) LIKE :searchTerm
        OR CAST( il.nbr as string ) LIKE :searchTerm
        OR LOWER( il.type ) LIKE :searchTerm
        OR LOWER( il.description ) LIKE :searchTerm )

But you can have serious performance problems doing this, because the database will cannot use the nbr index (if nbr column is indexed).

Solution 2

You can simply use CAST(num as string) or CONCAT(num,''). It worked for me

Solution 3

simple.. CAST( field as text/varchar) LIKE It must be a type knows by the database (not string like in HQL)

And looking at your query there is a more efficient way to do it:

With CONCAT you don't have to cast NON String arguments (WHEN there is more than one and AT LEAST one is an String)

This works: LOWER(CONCAT(name, nbr, description)) LIKE

This doesn't: CONCAT(nbr), I guess because it doesn't recognize a JPQL function CONCAT(Long.. )

Comments

[Neil Stockton]

You don't. LIKE is for Strings only, as per the JPQL BNF datanucleus.org/products/accessplatform_4_2/jpa/…

[Kawu]

Too bad the question was clearly about JPQL not HQL... we're using various JPA providers...

[Dherik]

My mistake, @Kawu. Native query is an option for you? Do you think about create a new column with the nbr as VARCHAR type?