Spring Data JPA: Query by Example?

Question

Using Spring Data JPA can I do a query by example where a particular entity instance is used as the search criteria?

For example (no pun intended), if I have a

Answer 1

This is now possible with Spring Data. Check out http://docs.spring.io/spring-data/jpa/docs/current/reference/html/#query-by-example

Person person = new Person();                         
person.setLastname("Smith");                          
Example example = Example.of(person);
List results = personRepository.findAll(example);

Note that this requires very recent 2016 versions

    
        org.springframework.data
        spring-data-jpa
        1.10.1.RELEASE       
    
    
        org.springframework.data
        spring-data-commons
        1.12.1.RELEASE
    

see https://github.com/paulvi/com.example.spring.findbyexample