Spring Data Rest - sort by nested property

Question

I have a database service using Spring Boot 1.5.1 and Spring Data Rest. I am storing my entities in a MySQL database, and accessing them over REST using Spring\'s PagingAndS

Answer 1

The workaround I found is to create an extra read-only property for sorting purposes only. Building on the example above:

@Entity(name = "Person")
@Table(name = "PERSON")
public class Person {

    // read only, for sorting purposes only
    // @JsonIgnore // we can hide it from the clients, if needed
    @RestResource(exported=false) // read only so we can map 2 fields to the same database column
    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name = "address_id", insertable = false, updatable = false) 
    private Address address;

    // We still want the linkable association created to work as before so we manually override the relation and path
    @RestResource(exported=true, rel="address", path="address")
    @ManyToOne
    private Address addressLink;

    ...
}

The drawback for the proposed workaround is that we now have to explicitly duplicate all the properties for which we want to support nested sorting.

LATER EDIT: another drawback is that we cannot hide the embedded property from the clients. In my original answer, I was suggesting we can add @JsonIgnore, but apparently that breaks the sort.