JPA/Hibernate Native Queries do not recognize Parameters

Question

I am using Hibernate/JPA to execute native PostGIS queries. The problem with these queries is that they need parameters that are not of the classical X = 'value' form.

For example, the following lines crash

 String queryString = "select * from Cell c where ST_DWithin(c.shape, SetSRID(ST_GeomFromEWKT('POINT(:lon :lat)'),4326), 0.1)";
  Query query = Cell.em().createNativeQuery(queryString, Cell.class);
  query.setParameter("lon", longitude);
  query.setParameter("lat", latitude);

play.exceptions.JavaExecutionException: org.hibernate.QueryParameterException: could not locate named parameter [lon]
 at play.mvc.ActionInvoker.invoke(ActionInvoker.java:259)
 at Invocation.HTTP Request(Play!)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: org.hibernate.QueryParameterException: could not locate named parameter [lon]
 at org.hibernate.ejb.QueryImpl.setParameter(QueryImpl.java:358)

The following query works however :

String queryString = String.format("select * from Cell c where ST_DWithin(c.shape, SetSRID(ST_GeomFromEWKT('POINT(%f %f)'),4326), 0.1)", longitude, latitude);
Query query = Cell.em().createNativeQuery(queryString, Cell.class);

(but it is SQL-injection-prone...)

Does anyone know how to use setParameter() in this case ?

Answer 1

The use of named parameters is not defined for native queries. From the JPA specification (section 3.6.3 Named Parameters):

Named parameters follow the rules for identifiers defined in Section 4.4.1. The use of named parameters applies to the Java Persistence query language, and is not defined for native queries. Only positional parameter binding may be portably used for native queries.

So try the following instead:

String queryString = "select * from Cell c where ST_DWithin(c.shape, SetSRID(ST_GeomFromEWKT('POINT(?1 ?2)'),4326), 0.1)";
Query query = Cell.em().createNativeQuery(queryString, Cell.class);
query.setParameter(1, longitude);
query.setParameter(2, latitude);

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Note that in JPA >= 2.0 you can use named parameters in native queries.