Criteria API

The Criteria API is an API for building queries with Java objects, as an alternative to building strings for Java Persistence Query Language (JPQL) queries.

The Criteria API supports building queries dynamically at run time, and also the ability to build type-safe queries that can be verified by the compiler. The correctness of JPQL queries cannot be verified by the compiler, and must be verified at run time during testing.

The following is a sample JPQL query that returns a list of employees with less than five years of service:

SELECT e FROM Employee e WHERE e.serviceyears < 5

Here is a sample of the equivalent Criteria query:

QueryBuilder qb = emf.getQueryBuilder();
CriteriaQuery q = qb.create(Employee.class);
Root e = q.from(Employee.class);
q.where(qb.lt(e.get(Employee_.serviceyears), 5));
TypedQuery tq = em.createQuery(q);
List result = q.getResultList();

Employee_ is the etamodel of the Employee class.

Two important features are improvements from JPQL:

• The Criteria API can express queries that are not possible through JPQL. For more detailed information see the section, "Editable data store expressions", in the developerWorks article, Dynamic, typesafe queries in JPA 2.0.
• A CriteriaQuery can be edited programmatically. For more information see the section, "Editable query", in the developerWorks article, Dynamic, typesafe queries in JPA 2.0.

Developing JPA 2.x applications for a Java SE environment

Developing JPA 2.x applications for a Java EE environment

Dynamic, typesafe queries in JPA 2.0