1. Overview
Spring Data JPA queries, by default, are case-sensitive. In other words, the field value comparisons are case-sensitive.
In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to quickly create a case insensitive query in a Spring Data JPA repository.
2. Dependencies
Firstly, let’s make sure we have Spring Data and H2 database dependencies in our pom.xml:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
<version>2.7.11</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
<artifactId>h2</artifactId>
<scope>runtime</scope>
<version>2.1.214</version>
</dependency>
The latest versions of these Spring Boot Starter JPA and H2 are available on Maven Central.
3. Initial Setup
Let’s say we have a Passenger entity with id, firstName, and lastName attributes:
@Entity
class Passenger {
@Id
@GeneratedValue
@Column(nullable = false)
private Long id;
@Basic(optional = false)
@Column(nullable = false)
private String firstName;
@Basic(optional = false)
@Column(nullable = false)
private String lastName;
// constructor, static factory, getters, setters
}
Also, let’s prepare our test class by populating the database with some sample Passenger data:
@DataJpaTest
@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
public class PassengerRepositoryIntegrationTest {
@PersistenceContext
private EntityManager entityManager;
@Autowired
private PassengerRepository repository;
@Before
public void before() {
entityManager.persist(Passenger.from("Jill", "Smith"));
entityManager.persist(Passenger.from("Eve", "Jackson"));
entityManager.persist(Passenger.from("Fred", "Bloggs"));
entityManager.persist(Passenger.from("Ricki", "Bobbie"));
entityManager.persist(Passenger.from("Siya", "Kolisi"));
}
//...
}
4. IgnoreCase for Case Insensitive Queries
Now, suppose we want to perform a case-insensitive search to find all passengers with a given firstName.
To do so, we’ll define our PassengerRepository as:
@Repository
public interface PassengerRepository extends JpaRepository<Passenger, Long> {
List<Passenger> findByFirstNameIgnoreCase(String firstName);
}
Here, the IgnoreCase keyword ensures that the query matches are case insensitive.
We can also test that out with the help of a JUnit test:
@Test
public void givenPassengers_whenMatchingIgnoreCase_thenExpectedReturned() {
Passenger jill = Passenger.from("Jill", "Smith");
Passenger eve = Passenger.from("Eve", "Jackson");
Passenger fred = Passenger.from("Fred", "Bloggs");
Passenger siya = Passenger.from("Siya", "Kolisi");
Passenger ricki = Passenger.from("Ricki", "Bobbie");
List<Passenger> passengers = repository.findByFirstNameIgnoreCase("FrED");
assertThat(passengers, contains(fred));
assertThat(passengers, not(contains(eve)));
assertThat(passengers, not(contains(siya)));
assertThat(passengers, not(contains(jill)));
assertThat(passengers, not(contains(ricki)));
}
Despite having passed “FrED” as the argument, our returned list of passengers contains a Passenger with the firstName as “Fred”. Clearly, with the help of the IgnoreCase keyword, we have achieved a case insensitive match.
5. Conclusion
In this quick tutorial, we learned how to create a case insensitive query in a Spring Data repository.
Finally, code examples are available over on GitHub.
