JPQL query with WHERE on nested fields

Question

I have a java entity class UserBean with a list of events:

@OneToMany
private List events;

EventBean has Date variable:

Answer 1

Path u.events.eventDate is an illegal construct in JPQL, because it is not allowed to navigate via a collection valued path expression. In this case u.events is a collection valued path expression. In JPA 2.0 specification this is told with following words:

It is syntactically illegal to compose a path expression from a path expression that evaluates to a collection. For example, if o designates Order, the path expression o.lineItems.product is illegal since navigation to lineItems results in a collection. This case should produce an error when the query string is verified. To handle such a navigation, an identification variable must be declared in the FROM clause to range over the elements of the lineItems collection.

This problem can be solved by using JOIN:

SELECT distinct(u) 
FROM UserBean u JOIN u.events e 
WHERE u.name = :someName
      AND e.eventDate > :startDate 
      AND e.eventDate < :endDate