[eclipselink-users] read complex object model in an ordered way

[Raven McSmith <ravenmcsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
I need to read a complex model in an ordered way with eclipselink. The
order is mandantory because it is a huge database and I want to have
an output of a small portion of the database in an eclipse jface
tableview. Trying to reorder it in the loading/quering thread takes
too long and ordering it in the LabelProvider blocks the UI thread too
much time, so I thought if Eclipselink could be used that way, that
the database will order it, it might give me the performance I need.
Unfortunately the object model can not be changed :-(
The model is something like:

    @SuppressWarnings("serial")
    @Entity
    public class Thing implements Serializable {
         @Id
         @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.TABLE)
         private int id;
         private String name;
         @OneToMany(cascade=CascadeType.ALL)
         @PrivateOwned
         private List<Property> properties = new ArrayList<Property>();
         ...
         // getter and setter following here
    }
    public class Property implements Serializable {
     @Id
     @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.TABLE)
     private int id;

     @OneToOne
     private Item item;
         private String value;
         ...
         // getter and setter following here
    }
    public class Item implements Serializable {
     @Id
     @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.TABLE)
     private int id;
     private String name;
         ....
         // getter and setter following here
    }


In the jface tableview the y-axis is more or less created with the query

    Query q = em.createQuery("SELECT m FROM Thing m ORDER BY m.name ASC");

using the "name" attribute from the Thing objects as label.
In the table view the x-axis is more or less created with the query

    Query q = em.createQuery("SELECT m FROM Item m ORDER BY m.name ASC");

using the "name" attribute from the Item objects as label.
Each cell has the value

    Things.getProperties().get[x].getValue()

Unfortunately the list "properties" is not ordered, so the combination
of cell value and x-axis column number (x) is not necessarily correct.
Therefore I need to order the list "properties" in the same way as I
ordered the labeling of the x-axis.
And exactly this is the thing I dont know how it is done. So querying
for the Thing objects should return the list "properties" "ORDER BY
name ASC" _but_ of the "Item"s objects.

First ideas with the @OrderBy annotations did not succeed because it
is a cascaded object model.

Then I tried to use

em.createNativeQuery("SELECT * FROM Thing AS a JOIN Thing_Property AS b ON
a.id=b.Thing_ID JOIN Property AS c ON b.properties_ID = c.id JOIN Item
AS d ON c.item_ID = d.id ORDER BY a.name, d.name ", Thing.class);

It works but not in the desired way. Instead of having the Property in
the list properties I get a 1:1 mapping. Meaning that I should have 10
Thing objects with each 100 Property objects in the properties list,
but I have now 1000 Thing objects with each 1 Property objects in the
properties list. Eclipselink doesn't do the grouping.

Can you give me any hints, how to solve this riddle?

Thanks

Raven