Traversing Criteria

Traversing criteria allow you to decide how much information is returned for a query.

General

Traversing criteria is our implementation of the lazy/eager loading concept, which allows you to return absent information for specific elements that can be loaded at a later point. The main benefit of lazy loading is it lowers the cost of your search, as you can target the data returned, rather that returning a large amounts of data, lowering transmission costs.

The default behavior is as follows:

• simple types and enums are loaded immediately
• accessing complex types triggers further query

Configuration for customized behavior is done via traversing criteria. The traversing criterion is defined by patterns which can be created by the static class TC.

Lazy Loading and Eager Loading

With traversing criteria, you can specify what information to load when retrieving a network of entities.

Traversing Criteria Examples

Lazy Loading of One Complex Property

TraversingCriterion traversingCriterion =
    TC.create()
        .pattern()
            .entity(Company.T).property("ceo")
        .close()
    .done()
query.setTraversingCriterion(traversingCriterion);

Lazy Loading of Two Complex Properties

TraversingCriterion traversingCriterion =
    TC.create()
        .pattern()
            .entity(Company.T).property("ceo")
        .close()
        .pattern()
            .entity(Company.T).property("address")
        .close()
    .done();
query.setTraversingCriterion(traversingCriterion);

You can achieve the same result using a disjunction:

TraversingCriterion traversingCriterion =
    TC.create()
        .pattern()
            .entity(Company.T)
            .disjunction
                .property("ceo")
                .property("address")
            .close()
        .close()
    .done();
query.setTraversingCriterion(traversingCriterion);

What's Next?

For more information about how to use traversing criteria, see Traversing Criteria in Detail.