Is Select EXISTS() possible in JPQL?

In a project with Hibernate 5.2 (which supports JPA 2.1), and Spring Data Jpa 2.0.6, I successfully used this JPQL query:

@Query("SELECT COUNT(c) > 0 FROM Contract c WHERE c.person.id = :pid")
Boolean existContractForPerson(@Param("pid") Long personId);

In the logs, I read that the produced native query is the following:

select count(contract0_.contract_id)>0 as col_0_0_ from contracts contract0_ where contract0_.fk_person_id=?

Alternatively you could use a select count(...) and test whether it returns 0. This should be almost as efficient without requiring to write much more code (in fact, the query itself will probably look simpler).

This answer is obsolete. Please refer to correct answer from Rene Link

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No, it is not possible.

Refer to the JPQL BNF documentation from oracle.

simple_cond_expression ::= comparison_expression | between_expression | like_expression | in_expression | null_comparison_expression | empty_collection_comparison_expression | collection_member_expression | exists_expression

exists_expression ::= [NOT] EXISTS(subquery)

You can do a boolean query using a case expression.

As of JPA 2.0 (Java EE 6) you can create a TypedQuery .

String query = "select case when (count(*) > 0)  then true else false end from ......"
TypedQuery<Boolean> booleanQuery = entityManager.createQuery(query, Boolean.class);
boolean exists = booleanQuery.getSingleResult();

In JPA 1.0 (Java EE 5) you must use an untyped query.

Query booleanQuery = entityManager.createQuery(query);
boolean exists = (Boolean) booleanQuery.getSingleResult();