In JPA 2, using a CriteriaQuery, how to count results

I am rather new to JPA 2 and it's CriteriaBuilder / CriteriaQuery API:

CriteriaQuery javadoc

CriteriaQuery in the Java EE 6 tutorial

I would like to count the results of a CriteriaQuery without actually retrieving them. Is that possible, I did not find any such method, the only way would be to do this:

CriteriaBuilder cb = entityManager.getCriteriaBuilder();

CriteriaQuery<MyEntity> cq = cb
        .createQuery(MyEntityclass);

// initialize predicates here

return entityManager.createQuery(cq).getResultList().size();

And that can't be the proper way to do it...

Is there a solution?

A query of type MyEntity is going to return MyEntity. You want a query for a Long.

CriteriaBuilder qb = entityManager.getCriteriaBuilder();
CriteriaQuery<Long> cq = qb.createQuery(Long.class);
cq.select(qb.count(cq.from(MyEntity.class)));
cq.where(/*your stuff*/);
return entityManager.createQuery(cq).getSingleResult();

Obviously you will want to build up your expression with whatever restrictions and groupings etc you skipped in the example.

I've sorted this out using the cb.createQuery() (without the result type parameter):

public class Blah() {

    CriteriaBuilder criteriaBuilder = entityManager.getCriteriaBuilder();
    CriteriaQuery query = criteriaBuilder.createQuery();
    Root<Entity> root;
    Predicate whereClause;
    EntityManager entityManager;
    Class<Entity> domainClass;

    ... Methods to create where clause ...
    
    public Blah(EntityManager entityManager, Class<Entity> domainClass) {
        this.entityManager = entityManager;
        this.domainClass = domainClass;
        criteriaBuilder = entityManager.getCriteriaBuilder();
        query = criteriaBuilder.createQuery();
        whereClause = criteriaBuilder.equal(criteriaBuilder.literal(1), 1);
        root = query.from(domainClass);
    }

    public CriteriaQuery<Entity> getQuery() {
        query.select(root);
        query.where(whereClause);
        return query;
    }

    public CriteriaQuery<Long> getQueryForCount() {
        query.select(criteriaBuilder.count(root));
        query.where(whereClause);
        return query;
    }

    public List<Entity> list() {
        TypedQuery<Entity> q = this.entityManager.createQuery(this.getQuery());
        return q.getResultList();
    }

    public Long count() {
        TypedQuery<Long> q = this.entityManager.createQuery(this.getQueryForCount());
        return q.getSingleResult();
    }
}

Hope it helps :)

CriteriaBuilder cb = em.getCriteriaBuilder();
CriteriaQuery<Long> cq = cb.createQuery(Long.class);
cq.select(cb.count(cq.from(MyEntity.class)));
		
return em.createQuery(cq).getSingleResult();

As others answers are correct, but too simple, so for completeness I'm presenting below code snippet to perform SELECT COUNT on a sophisticated JPA Criteria query (with multiple joins, fetches, conditions).

It is slightly modified this answer.

public <T> long count(final CriteriaBuilder cb, final CriteriaQuery<T> selectQuery,
        Root<T> root) {
    CriteriaQuery<Long> query = createCountQuery(cb, selectQuery, root);
    return this.entityManager.createQuery(query).getSingleResult();
}

private <T> CriteriaQuery<Long> createCountQuery(final CriteriaBuilder cb,
        final CriteriaQuery<T> criteria, final Root<T> root) {

    final CriteriaQuery<Long> countQuery = cb.createQuery(Long.class);
    final Root<T> countRoot = countQuery.from(criteria.getResultType());

    doJoins(root.getJoins(), countRoot);
    doJoinsOnFetches(root.getFetches(), countRoot);

    countQuery.select(cb.count(countRoot));
    countQuery.where(criteria.getRestriction());

    countRoot.alias(root.getAlias());

    return countQuery.distinct(criteria.isDistinct());
}

@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
private void doJoinsOnFetches(Set<? extends Fetch<?, ?>> joins, Root<?> root) {
    doJoins((Set<? extends Join<?, ?>>) joins, root);
}

private void doJoins(Set<? extends Join<?, ?>> joins, Root<?> root) {
    for (Join<?, ?> join : joins) {
        Join<?, ?> joined = root.join(join.getAttribute().getName(), join.getJoinType());
        joined.alias(join.getAlias());
        doJoins(join.getJoins(), joined);
    }
}

private void doJoins(Set<? extends Join<?, ?>> joins, Join<?, ?> root) {
    for (Join<?, ?> join : joins) {
        Join<?, ?> joined = root.join(join.getAttribute().getName(), join.getJoinType());
        joined.alias(join.getAlias());
        doJoins(join.getJoins(), joined);
    }
}

Hope it saves somebody's time.

Because IMHO JPA Criteria API is not intuitive nor quite readable.

It is a bit tricky, depending on the JPA 2 implementation you use, this one works for EclipseLink 2.4.1, but doesn't for Hibernate, here a generic CriteriaQuery count for EclipseLink:

public static Long count(final EntityManager em, final CriteriaQuery<?> criteria)
  {
    final CriteriaBuilder builder=em.getCriteriaBuilder();
    final CriteriaQuery<Long> countCriteria=builder.createQuery(Long.class);
    countCriteria.select(builder.count(criteria.getRoots().iterator().next()));
    final Predicate
            groupRestriction=criteria.getGroupRestriction(),
            fromRestriction=criteria.getRestriction();
    if(groupRestriction != null){
      countCriteria.having(groupRestriction);
    }
    if(fromRestriction != null){
      countCriteria.where(fromRestriction);
    }
    countCriteria.groupBy(criteria.getGroupList());
    countCriteria.distinct(criteria.isDistinct());
    return em.createQuery(countCriteria).getSingleResult();
  }

The other day I migrated from EclipseLink to Hibernate and had to change my count function to the following, so feel free to use either as this is a hard problem to solve, it might not work for your case, it has been in use since Hibernate 4.x, notice that I don't try to guess which is the root, instead I pass it from the query so problem solved, too many ambiguous corner cases to try to guess:

  public static <T> long count(EntityManager em,Root<T> root,CriteriaQuery<T> criteria)
  {
    final CriteriaBuilder builder=em.getCriteriaBuilder();
    final CriteriaQuery<Long> countCriteria=builder.createQuery(Long.class);

    countCriteria.select(builder.count(root));

    for(Root<?> fromRoot : criteria.getRoots()){
      countCriteria.getRoots().add(fromRoot);
    }

    final Predicate whereRestriction=criteria.getRestriction();
    if(whereRestriction!=null){
      countCriteria.where(whereRestriction);
    }

    final Predicate groupRestriction=criteria.getGroupRestriction();
    if(groupRestriction!=null){
      countCriteria.having(groupRestriction);
    }

    countCriteria.groupBy(criteria.getGroupList());
    countCriteria.distinct(criteria.isDistinct());
    return em.createQuery(countCriteria).getSingleResult();
  }

You can also use Projections:

ProjectionList projection = Projections.projectionList();
projection.add(Projections.rowCount());
criteria.setProjection(projection);

Long totalRows = (Long) criteria.list().get(0);

With Spring Data Jpa, we can use this method:

    /*
     * (non-Javadoc)
     * @see org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaSpecificationExecutor#count(org.springframework.data.jpa.domain.Specification)
     */
    @Override
    public long count(@Nullable Specification<T> spec) {
        return executeCountQuery(getCountQuery(spec, getDomainClass()));
    }