Adding a projection to an NHibernate criteria stops it from performing default entity selection - sql-server

Question

I'm writing an NHibernate criteria that selects data supporting paging. I'm using the COUNT(*) OVER() expression from SQL Server 2005(+) to get hold of the total number of available rows, as suggested by Ayende Rahien. I need that number to be able to calculate how many pages there are in total. The beauty of this solution is that I don't need to execute a second query to get hold of the row count.
However, I can't seem to manage to write a working criteria (Ayende only provides an HQL query).
Here's an SQL query that shows what I want and it works just fine. Note that I intentionally left out the actual paging logic to focus on the problem:
SELECT Items.*, COUNT(*) OVER() AS rowcount
FROM Items
Here's the HQL:
select
item, rowcount()
from
Item item
Note that the rowcount() function is registered in a custom NHibernate dialect and resolves to COUNT(*) OVER() in SQL.
A requirement is that the query is expressed using a criteria. Unfortunately, I don't know how to get it right:
var query = Session
.CreateCriteria<Item>("item")
.SetProjection(
Projections.SqlFunction("rowcount", NHibernateUtil.Int32));
Whenever I add a projection, NHibernate doesn't select item (like it would without a projection), just the rowcount() while I really need both. Also, I can't seem to project item as a whole, only it's properties and I really don't want to list all of them.
I hope someone has a solution to this. Thanks anyway.

Answer 1

I think it is not possible in Criteria, it has some limits.
You could get the id and load items in a subsequent query:
var query = Session
.CreateCriteria<Item>("item")
.SetProjection(Projections.ProjectionList()
.Add(Projections.SqlFunction("rowcount", NHibernateUtil.Int32))
.Add(Projections.Id()));
If you don't like it, use HQL, you can set the maximal number of results there too:
IList<Item> result = Session
.CreateQuery("select item, rowcount() from item where ..." )
.SetMaxResult(100)
.List<Item>();

Answer 2

Use CreateMultiCriteria.
You can execute 2 simple statements with only one hit to the DB that way.

Answer 3

I am wondering why using Criteria is a requirement. Can't you use session.CreateSQLQuery? If you really must do it in one query, I would have suggested pulling back the Item objects and the count, like:
select {item.*}, count(*) over()
from Item {item}
...this way you can get back Item objects from your query, along with the count. If you experience a problem with Hibernate's caching, you can also configure the query spaces (entity/table caches) associated with a native query so that stale query cache entries will be cleared automatically.

Answer 4

If I understand your question properly, I have a solution. I struggled quite a bit with this same problem.
Let me quickly describe the problem I had, to make sure we're on the same page. My problem came down to paging. I want to display 10 records in the UI, but I also want to know the total number of records that matched the filter criteria. I wanted to accomplish this using the NH criteria API, but when adding a projection for row count, my query no longer worked, and I wouldn't get any results (I don't remember the specific error, but it sounds like what you're getting).
Here's my solution (copy & paste from my current production code). Note that "SessionError" is the name of the business entity I'm retrieving paged data for, according to 3 filter criterion: IsDev, IsRead, and IsResolved.
ICriteria crit = CurrentSession.CreateCriteria(typeof (SessionError))
.Add(Restrictions.Eq("WebApp", this));
if (isDev.HasValue)
crit.Add(Restrictions.Eq("IsDev", isDev.Value));
if (isRead.HasValue)
crit.Add(Restrictions.Eq("IsRead", isRead.Value));
if (isResolved.HasValue)
crit.Add(Restrictions.Eq("IsResolved", isResolved.Value));
// Order by most recent
crit.AddOrder(Order.Desc("DateCreated"));
// Copy the ICriteria query to get a row count as well
ICriteria critCount = CriteriaTransformer.Clone(crit)
.SetProjection(Projections.RowCountInt64());
critCount.Orders.Clear();
// NOW add the paging vars to the original query
crit = crit
.SetMaxResults(pageSize)
.SetFirstResult(pageNum_oneBased * pageSize);
// Set up a multi criteria to get your data in a single trip to the database
IMultiCriteria multCrit = CurrentSession.CreateMultiCriteria()
.Add(crit)
.Add(critCount);
// Get the results
IList results = multCrit.List();
List<SessionError> sessionErrors = new List<SessionError>();
foreach (SessionError sessErr in ((IList)results[0]))
sessionErrors.Add(sessErr);
numResults = (long)((IList)results[1])[0];
So I create my base criteria, with optional restrictions. Then I CLONE it, and add a row count projection to the CLONED criteria. Note that I clone it before I add the paging restrictions. Then I set up an IMultiCriteria to contain the original and cloned ICriteria objects, and use the IMultiCriteria to execute both of them. Now I have my paged data from the original ICriteria (and I only dragged the data I need across the wire), and also a raw count of how many actual records matched my criteria (useful for display or creating paging links, or whatever). This strategy has worked well for me. I hope this is helpful.

Answer 5

I would suggest investigating custom result transformer by calling SetResultTransformer() on your session.

Answer 6

Create a formula property in the class mapping:
<property name="TotalRecords" formula="count(*) over()" type="Int32" not-null="true"/>;
IList<...> result = criteria.SetFirstResult(skip).SetMaxResults(take).List<...>();
totalRecords = (result != null && result.Count > 0) ? result[0].TotalRecords : 0;
return result;