Spring Boot Tutorial 0/110 lessons ~6 min read Lesson 32“Production-grade backends”

Native Queries

When JPQL can't express what you need (Postgres-specific JSON ops, CTEs, window functions), drop to native SQL with nativeQuery = true.

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Focus

3 guided sections

Practice signal

Examples included

Career prep

Foundation builder

Introduction

When JPQL can't express what you need (Postgres-specific JSON ops, CTEs, window functions), drop to native SQL with nativeQuery = true.

Informative example

public interface OrderRepository extends JpaRepository<Order, Long> {

  @Query(value = """
      with recent as (
        select user_id, count(*) cnt
        from orders
        where created_at > now() - interval '30 days'
        group by user_id
      )
      select u.id, u.email, coalesce(r.cnt, 0) as orders_30d
      from users u
      left join recent r on r.user_id = u.id
      where u.tier = :tier
      """, nativeQuery = true)
  List<Object[]> activeUsersByTier(@Param("tier") String tier);
}

Best practices

Map results to a projection interface instead of Object[] — type-safe.
Keep native SQL in repository files only — never in services.
If you have many native queries, consider jOOQ for compile-time SQL.

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