Can we write describe table query in JPQL?

Question

I am taking a 'Keyword' and table name from user. Now, I want to find all the columns of table whose data type is varchar(String). Then I will create query which will compare the keyword with those column and matching rows will be returned as result set.

I tried desc table_name query, but it didn't work.

Can we write describe table query in JPQL? If not then is there any other way to solve above situation? Please help and thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Map the database dictionary tables and read the required data from them. For Oracle database you will need to select from these three tables: user_tab_comments, user_tab_cols, user_col_comments; to achieve the full functionality of the describe statement.

There are some talks over the community about dynamic definition of the persistent unit in the future releases of JPA: http://www.oracle.com/goto/newsletters/javadev/0111/blogs_sun_devoxx.html?msgid=3-3156674507

Answer 2

No workaround is necessary, because it's not a drawback of the technology. It is not JPQL that needs to be changed, it's your choice of technology. In JPQL you cannot even select data from a table. You select from classes, and these can be mapped to multiple tables at once, resulting in SQL joins for simplest queries. Describing such a join would be meaningless. And even if you could describe a table, you do not use names of columns in JPQL, but properties of objects. Describing tables in JPQL makes no sense.

JPQL is meant for querying objects, not tables. Also, it is meant for static work (where classes are mapped to relations once and for good) and not for dynamic things like mapping tables to objects on-the-fly or live inspection of database (that is what ror's AR is for). Dynamic discovery of properties is not a part of that.

Depending on what you really want to achieve (we only know what you are trying to do, that's different) you have two basic choices:

• if you are trying to write a piece of software in a dynamic way, so that it adjusts itself to changes in schema - drop JPQL (or any other ORM). Java classes are meant to be static, you can't really map them to dynamic tables (or grow new attributes). Use rowsets, they work fine and they will let you use SQL;

• if you are building a clever library that can be shared by many projects and so has to work with many different static mappings, use reflection API to find properties of objects that you query for. Names of columns in the table will not help you anyway, since in JPQL queries you have to use names defined in mappings.

Answer 3

According to me, we can not use describe query in jpql.