How to make an advanced search with Spring Data REST?

Question

My task is to make an advanced search with Spring Data REST. How can I implement it?

I managed to make a method to do a simple search, like this one:

public interface ExampleRepository extends CrudRepository<Example, UUID>{

    @RestResource(path="searchByName", rel="searchByName")
    Example findByExampleName(@Param("example") String exampleName);

}

This example works perfectly if I have to go simply to the url:

.../api/examples/search/searchByName?example=myExample

But what I have to do if there are more than one field to search?

For example, if my Example class has 5 fields, what implementation should I have to make an advanced search with all possibiles fileds?

Consider this one:

.../api/examples/search/searchByName?filed1=value1&field2=value2&field4=value4

and this one:

.../api/examples/search/searchByName?filed1=value1&field3=value3

What I have to do to implement this search in appropriate way?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Spring Data Rest has integrated QueryDSL with web support as well which you can use for your advanced search requirement. You need to change your repository to implement QueryDslPredicateExecutor and things will work out of the box.

Here is a sample from the blog article about the feature:

$ http :8080/api/stores?address.city=York    
{
    "_embedded": {
        "stores": [
            {
                "_links": {
                    …
                }, 
                "address": {
                    "city": "New York", 
                    "location": { "x": -73.938421, "y": 40.851 }, 
                    "street": "803 W 181st St", 
                    "zip": "10033-4516"
                }, 
                "name": "Washington Hgts/181st St"
            }, 
            {
                "_links": {
                    …
                }, 
                "address": {
                    "city": "New York", 
                    "location": { "x": -73.939822, "y": 40.84135 }, 
                    "street": "4001 Broadway", 
                    "zip": "10032-1508"
                }, 
                "name": "168th & Broadway"
            }, 
            …
        ]
    }, 
    "_links": {
        …
    }, 
    "page": {
        "number": 0, 
        "size": 20, 
        "totalElements": 209, 
        "totalPages": 11
    }
}