JBoss NOT EJB 2.0 Compliant ??!!!

[dandesch]

Okay, first of all, sorry for that subject line. I have a question that no one has replied to for several days. So I looked around and noticed that the questions that do get answered seem to have subject lines with two common characteristics: 1. provocative language, and 2. one or more exclamation points.

I do not actually think that JBoss isn't compliant, but I am seeing error messages on startup that make it appear as if it weren't compliant

Details:

-> JBoss version 3.2.1.
-> Attempting an EJBQL query that selects records from a Microsoft SQL Server database based on a range of value in one particular field using a WHERE clause.
-> All entity beans implemented 100% CMP and CMR.

On startup of JBoss, I get this message:
org.jboss.deployment.DeploymentException: Error compiling EJB-QL statement 'SELECT object (a) FROM Account a WHERE a.accountNumber > ?1 AND a.accountNumber < ?2
AND a.company.companyId = ?3'; - nested throwable: (org.jboss.ejb.plugins.cmp.e
jbql.ParseException: Encountered ">" at line 1, column 56.
Was expecting one of:
"=" ...
"<>" ...
)

So, it looks like JBoss is expecting only equal ("=") or not-equal ("<>") relationships, no greater than or less than allowed. I know that can't be right. The JBossCMP.pdf document I purchased from this very web site shows examples of EJBQL using the WHERE clause with the greater than symbol ("WHERE badness > ?1" or something like that). So, there must be something wrong with a config file somewhere or an obsolete jar file or something, but I have no idea where to look.

Also, I had a colleague who works in a different office, and who runs a different version of JBoss (3.2.0) try this same query using the same beans and interfaces and ejb-jar.xml, and he gets the exact same error message.

Anybody out there succesfully using the greater than and less than symbols in a WHERE clause in EJBQL? Did you have to do some sort of chicken swinging to get it to work? Do I have to buy some other document to instruct me on the eternal mysteries and show me the secret handshake? I'll gladly do that if that's what it takes, but I have no idea where to look.

[wolfc]

EJB 2.0 spec 11.4 (EJB QL BNF) states that the operators you're using are only available for numeric values.

Most likely accountNumber is not numeric.

So slaughter a chicken, shake it's claw, change your code, redeploy and it'll probably work. :-)

[dandesch]

> EJB 2.0 spec 11.4 (EJB QL BNF) states that the
> operators you're using are only available for numeric
> values.
>
> Most likely accountNumber is not numeric.
>
> So slaughter a chicken, shake it's claw, change your
> code, redeploy and it'll probably work. :-)

You are correct. AccountNumber is a String--thanks for your insight. Now, how to pass on this news to my colleagues: "Guys, I have good news and bad news. Good news is, I got a useful and coherent answer to my question on the JBoss forum. Bad news is, you're not going to like the answer."

Some follow up questions:

anybody have any idea why this restriction (greater than / less than comparisons valid only for numeric value) exists?

Is there any chance this restriction will be loosened in a future version of EJB?

I realize these are EJB spec questions rather than, strictly speaking, JBoss questions, but there you go.

And to finish, a legitimate JBoss question: does the JBoss custom query language (is it called JBossQL?) allow for greater than / less than comparisons of String values?

Thanks again wolfc for your response.

[wolfc]

I don't know about the restrictions in the EJB spec, but you can find the jBossQL implementation for 3.2.1 here: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/jboss/jboss/src/main/org/jboss/ejb/plugins/cmp/ejbql/JBossQLParser.jjt?rev=1.6.2.3&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup

At fist glance it appears to support more comparison operators on Strings and it looks like it can do an order by... hmm...