15.4. Associations
By navigating associations using
createCriteria() you can specify constraints upon related entities:
List cats = sess.createCriteria(Cat.class)
.add( Restrictions.like("name", "F%") )
.createCriteria("kittens")
.add( Restrictions.like("name", "F%") )
.list();
The second
createCriteria() returns a new instance of Criteria that refers to the elements of the kittens collection.
There is also an alternate form that is useful in certain circumstances:
List cats = sess.createCriteria(Cat.class)
.createAlias("kittens", "kt")
.createAlias("mate", "mt")
.add( Restrictions.eqProperty("kt.name", "mt.name") )
.list();
(
createAlias() does not create a new instance of Criteria.)
The kittens collections held by the
Cat instances returned by the previous two queries are not pre-filtered by the criteria. If you want to retrieve just the kittens that match the criteria, you must use a ResultTransformer.
List cats = sess.createCriteria(Cat.class)
.createCriteria("kittens", "kt")
.add( Restrictions.eq("name", "F%") )
.setResultTransformer(Criteria.ALIAS_TO_ENTITY_MAP)
.list();
Iterator iter = cats.iterator();
while ( iter.hasNext() ) {
Map map = (Map) iter.next();
Cat cat = (Cat) map.get(Criteria.ROOT_ALIAS);
Cat kitten = (Cat) map.get("kt");
}