Spring Data JPA findAll() Method Example


In this blog post, we will demonstrate how to use the findAll() method in Spring Data JPA to fetch or retrieve all the entities from the database.

Understanding findAll() Method

The findAll() method, as the name implies, retrieves all entities of a given type from the database. It’s your go-to method when you want a list of all records without applying any filters.

Method Signature:

Iterable<T> findAll();

T is the domain type the repository manages. 

The method returns an Iterable<T>, which can easily be converted to more commonly used collections like List.

In this example, we will use the Product entity to save and retrieve to/from the MySQL database.

Maven Dependencies

First, you need to add the below dependencies to your Spring boot project:

		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
		</dependency>

		<dependency>
			<groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
			<artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
			<scope>runtime</scope>
		</dependency>

Create Product Entity

Let's first create a Product entity that we are going to save and retrieve to/from the MySQL database:

package net.javaguides.springdatajpacourse.entity;

import org.hibernate.annotations.CreationTimestamp;
import org.hibernate.annotations.UpdateTimestamp;

import jakarta.persistence.*;
import java.math.BigDecimal;
import java.util.Date;

@Entity
@Table(name="products")
public class Product {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    @Column(name = "id")
    private Long id;

    @Column(name = "sku")
    private String sku;

    @Column(name = "name")
    private String name;

    @Column(name = "description")
    private String description;

    @Column(name = "price")
    private BigDecimal price;

    @Column(name = "image_url")
    private String imageUrl;

    @Column(name = "active")
    private boolean active;

    @Column(name = "date_created")
    @CreationTimestamp
    private Date dateCreated;

    @Column(name = "last_updated")
    @UpdateTimestamp
    private Date lastUpdated;

    // getter and setter methods

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Product{" +
                "id=" + id +
                ", sku='" + sku + '\'' +
                ", name='" + name + '\'' +
                ", description='" + description + '\'' +
                ", price=" + price +
                ", imageUrl='" + imageUrl + '\'' +
                ", active=" + active +
                ", dateCreated=" + dateCreated +
                ", lastUpdated=" + lastUpdated +
                '}';
    }
}

ProductRepository

Let's create ProductRepository which extends the JpaRepository interface:
import net.javaguides.springdatajpacourse.entity.Product;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;

public interface ProductRepository extends JpaRepository<Product, Long> {

}

Configure MySQL and Hibernate Properties

Let's use the MySQL database to store and retrieve the data in this example and we gonna use Hibernate properties to create and drop tables.

Open the application.properties file and add the following configuration to it:

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/demo?useSSL=false
spring.datasource.username=root
spring.datasource.password=Mysql@123

spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto = create-drop

spring.jpa.show-sql=true
spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.format_sql=true
Make sure that you will create a demo database before running the Spring boot application.
Also, change the MySQL username and password as per your MySQL installation on your machine.

Testing findAll() Method

Let's write a JUnit test to test findAll() method:

import net.javaguides.springdatajpacourse.entity.Product;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.boot.test.autoconfigure.jdbc.AutoConfigureTestDatabase;
import org.springframework.boot.test.autoconfigure.orm.jpa.DataJpaTest;

import java.math.BigDecimal;
import java.util.List;

@DataJpaTest
@AutoConfigureTestDatabase(replace= AutoConfigureTestDatabase.Replace.NONE)
class ProductRepositoryTest {

    @Autowired
    private ProductRepository productRepository;

    protected Product getProduct1(){
        Product product = new Product();
        product.setName("product 1");
        product.setDescription("product 1 desc");
        product.setPrice(new BigDecimal(100));
        product.setSku("product 1 sku");
        product.setActive(true);
        product.setImageUrl("product1.png");
        return product;
    }

    protected Product getProduct2(){
        Product product2 = new Product();
        product2.setName("product 2");
        product2.setDescription("product 2 desc");
        product2.setPrice(new BigDecimal(200));
        product2.setSku("product 2 sku");
        product2.setActive(true);
        product2.setImageUrl("product2.png");
        return product2;
    }

    @Test
    void testFindAllMethod(){
        Product product = getProduct1();

        Product product2 = getProduct2();

        productRepository.saveAll(List.of(product, product2));

        productRepository.findAll().forEach((p) -> {
            System.out.println(p.getName());
        });
    }
We are using @DataJpaTest annotation to write a JUnit test ProductRepository findAll() method.

@AutoConfigureTestDatabase annotation is to disable embedded in-memory database support.

Output:

Here is the output of the above JUnit test case we wrote for testing findAll() method:
Hibernate: 
    insert 
    into
        products
        (active, date_created, description, image_url, last_updated, name, price, sku) 
    values
        (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)
Hibernate: 
    insert 
    into
        products
        (active, date_created, description, image_url, last_updated, name, price, sku) 
    values
        (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)
Hibernate: 
    select
        product0_.id as id1_0_,
        product0_.active as active2_0_,
        product0_.date_created as date_cre3_0_,
        product0_.description as descript4_0_,
        product0_.image_url as image_ur5_0_,
        product0_.last_updated as last_upd6_0_,
        product0_.name as name7_0_,
        product0_.price as price8_0_,
        product0_.sku as sku9_0_ 
    from
        products product0_