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Notice that we added required = false inside our previous @RequestParam annotation. This allows us to optionally add more query parameters if the user would like to search by a different field value instead. For example, we could extend the PersonRepository interface with another method:

List<Person> findByAgeLessThan(Integer age);

and update the searchPeople method accordingly:

@GetMapping("/people/search")
public List<Person> searchPeople(
  @RequestParam(name = "eyeColor", required = false) String eyeColor,
  @RequestParam(name = "maxAge", required = false) Integer maxAge 
) {
  if (eyeColor != null) {
    return this.personRepository.findByEyeColor(eyeColor)
  } else if (maxAge != null) {
    return this.personRepository.findByAgeLessThan(maxAge);
  } else {
    return new ArrayList<>();
  }
}

You can get even more advanced using And queries, so that you could query the PEOPLE table by both eyeColor and maxAge at the same time. The new method declaration in the interface would look like:

List<Person> findByEyeColorAndAgeLessThan(String eyeColor, Integer age);

The updated searchPeople method would look like:

@GetMapping("/people/search")
public List<Person> searchPeople(
  @RequestParam(name = "eyeColor", required = false) String eyeColor,
  @RequestParam(name = "maxAge", required = false) Integer maxAge 
) {
  if (eyeColor != null && maxAge != null) {
    return this.personRepository.findByEyeColorAndAgeLessThan(eyeColor, maxAge);
  } else if (eyeColor != null) {
    return this.personRepository.findByEyeColor(eyeColor);
  } else if (maxAge != null) {
    return this.personRepository.findByAgeLessThan(maxAge);
  } else {
    return new ArrayList<>();
  }
}

As you can tell by now, Spring Data JPA’s CrudRepository is a lot more powerful than it initially lets on!

The naming of the method declarations is extremely important here. The rules for the method names are detailed in the Spring documentation here.

Review the rules before proceeding to implement some custom query methods for the plant application in this exercise.

Instructions

Add the following custom query method declarations to the PlantRepository interface.

A query that yields a list of all plants that do NOT have fruit
A query that yields a list of all plants that have a quantity less than a supplied parameter quantity
A query that yields a list of all plants that have fruit AND the quantity is less than a supplied parameter quantity
A query that yields a list of all plants that DO NOT have fruit AND quantity less than a supplied parameter quantity

Try declaring them based off of the naming conventions that are detailed in the Spring Data JPA query methods documentation. If you get stuck, take a look at the hint.

Now that you have extended the capability of the PlantRepository significantly, you should use all the new functionality in a search endpoint!

Edit your @GetMapping method in your PlantController. searchPlants should return a List<Plant> and should accept two query parameters:

@RequestParam(name="hasFruit", required=false) Boolean hasFruit,
@RequestParam(name="maxQuantity", required=false) Integer quantity

For now, leave your method body as it is.

Now that your handler method, searchPlants, is ready with the required annotations and parameters, try adding in the logic to conditionally query the database.

If both hasFruit and quantity are non-null, and hasFruit is true, you should call the findByHasFruitTrueAndQuantityLessThan method.
If both hasFruit and quantity are non-null, and hasFruit is false, you should call the findByHasFruitFalseAndQuantityLessThan method.
If hasFruit is non-null, and hasFruit is true, you should call the findByHasFruitTrue method.
If hasFruit is non-null, and hasFruit is false, you should call the findByHasFruitFalse method.
If quantity is non-null, you should call the findByQuantityLessThan method.
If none of the above if statements pass, you should simply return an empty list with return new ArrayList<>();

Time to test out your fancy new search endpoint! Try the curl commands below to see the different search results.

curl "localhost:4001/plants/search?hasFruit=false&maxQuantity=20"

curl "localhost:4001/plants/search?hasFruit=false"

curl "localhost:4001/plants/search?hasFruit=true"

curl "localhost:4001/plants/search?hasFruit=true&maxQuantity=10"

curl "localhost:4001/plants/search?maxQuantity=10"

As a reminder, @RequestParam is case-sensitive. hasFruit=true will work but hasfruit=true will not.

If, at any point, you see an error like “Failed to connect to localhost port 4001: Connection refused”, your Spring server may be malfunctioning. Fix all errors in your code, and run your code before executing the command pkill ein in the terminal to reset the server. Your browser will disconnect and reconnect to Codecademy.

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