Can I use MyBatis to generate Dynamic SQL without executing it?

Question

I have some complex queries to build with a number of optional filters, for which MyBatis seems like an ideal candidate for generating dynamic SQL.

However, I still want my query to execute in the same framework as the rest of the application (which is not using MyBatis).

So what I was hoping to do was use MyBatis strictly for generating the SQL, but from there using the rest of my app to actually execute it. Is this possible? If so, how?

Answer 1

Although MyBatis was designed to execute the query after it builds it, you can make use of it's configuration and a little bit of "inside knowledge" to get to what you need.

MyBatis is a very nice framework, unfortunately it lacks on the documentations side so the source code is you friend. If you dig around you should bump into these classes: org.apache.ibatis.mapping.MappedStatement and org.apache.ibatis.mapping.BoundSql which are key players into building the dynamic SQL. Here is a basic usage example:

MySQL table user with this data in it:

name    login
-----   -----
Andy    a
Barry   b
Cris    c

User class:

package pack.test;
public class User {
    private String name;
    private String login;
    // getters and setters ommited
}

UserService interface:

package pack.test;
public interface UserService {
    // using a different sort of parameter to show some dynamic SQL
    public User getUser(int loginNumber);
}

UserService.xml mapper file:

<mapper namespace="pack.test.UserService">
    <select id="getUser" resultType="pack.test.User" parameterType="int">
       <!-- dynamic change of parameter from int index to login string -->
       select * from user where login = <choose>
                                           <when test="_parameter == 1">'a'</when>
                                           <when test="_parameter == 2">'b'</when>
                                           <otherwise>'c'</otherwise>
                                        </choose>   
    </select>
</mapper>

sqlmap-config.file:

<configuration>
    <settings>
        <setting name="lazyLoadingEnabled" value="false" />
    </settings>
    <environments default="development"> 
        <environment id="development"> 
            <transactionManager type="JDBC"/> 
            <dataSource type="POOLED"> 
                <property name="driver" value="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"/> 
                <property name="url" value="jdbc:mysql://localhost/test"/> 
                <property name="username" value="..."/> 
                <property name="password" value="..."/> 
            </dataSource> 
        </environment> 
      </environments>
    <mappers>
        <mapper resource="pack/test/UserService.xml"/>
    </mappers>
</configuration>

AppTester to show the result:

package pack.test;

import java.io.Reader;
import org.apache.ibatis.io.Resources;
import org.apache.ibatis.mapping.BoundSql;
import org.apache.ibatis.mapping.MappedStatement;
import org.apache.ibatis.session.SqlSession;
import org.apache.ibatis.session.SqlSessionFactoryBuilder;

public class AppTester {
    private static String CONFIGURATION_FILE = "sqlmap-config.xml";

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        Reader reader = null;
        SqlSession session = null;
        try {

            reader = Resources.getResourceAsReader(CONFIGURATION_FILE);
            session = new SqlSessionFactoryBuilder().build(reader).openSession();
            UserService userService = session.getMapper(UserService.class);

            // three users retreived from index
            for (int i = 1; i <= 3; i++) {
                User user = userService.getUser(i);
                System.out.println("Retreived user: " + user.getName() + " " + user.getLogin());

                // must mimic the internal statement key for the mapper and method you are calling
                MappedStatement ms = session.getConfiguration().getMappedStatement(UserService.class.getName() + ".getUser");
                BoundSql boundSql = ms.getBoundSql(i); // parameter for the SQL statement
                System.out.println("SQL used: " + boundSql.getSql());
                System.out.println();
            }

        } finally {
            if (reader != null) {
                reader.close();
            }
            if (session != null) {
                session.close();
            }
        }
    }
}

And the result:

Retreived user: Andy a
SQL used: select * from user where login =  'a'

Retreived user: Barry b
SQL used: select * from user where login =  'b'

Retreived user: Cris c
SQL used: select * from user where login =  'c'