Why can't I create a custom query for looking up an item by a keyword?

[Nathan Milota]

I have an Entity class for Item, but what I want to do is have it so that people can look up a keyword and find the item instead of having to type the exact name.   For example, if you have popsicle sticks as an item, I want them to be able to just type popsicle and get the item back.  

Here is my repository class.

public interface ItemRepository extends JpaRepository<Item, Long> {

	@Query("Select i from Item i where i.name LIKE %:keyword%")
	List<Item> findItemByKeyword(@Param("keyword")String keyword);
}

I'm getting an error that Keyword is not a property of item.  

However, I made another program similar to this, and it worked just fine, so I don't understand the error and how to fix it.

When I change it to findItemByName, it only gives back the results if I type the exact name of the item and ignores the custom query.

[Nathan Milota]

I changed it to findItemByNameContaining and got rid of the native query and it seems to work.   I don't know why the native query wasn't working though.

[Tim Holloway]

Well, you shouldn't use native queries at all unless there's a compelling reason not to use JPQL.

But I suspect that your fault was that you coded "where i.name LIKE %:keyword%" when you should have coded "where i.name LIKE '%:keyword%'". Note the extra quotes because this is now a string expression and not a direct variable reference.

Although if I remember correctly. there are some problems with that sort of syntax, so I'm glad you found a solution.