hibernate delete query must begin with SELECT or FROM?

haridsv · **Joined:** Wed Oct 18, 2006 5:45 pm **Posts:** 2

I am migrating our app from 2.x to 3.2.5 and face problem with delete queries. I am following the migration guide and using session.createQuery(deleteQuery).updateUpdate(), but the createQuery() throws an exception that the query must start with a SELECT or FROM. At the simplest, I am trying to do a delete with no where clause expecting all to be deleted, using something like "delete from Foo", where Foo is the name of a persistent class. I get the below exeption:

Code:

Caused by: org.hibernate.QueryException: query must begin with SELECT or FROM: delete [delete from Foo]
   at org.hibernate.hql.classic.ClauseParser.token(ClauseParser.java:83)
   at org.hibernate.hql.classic.PreprocessingParser.token(PreprocessingParser.java:108)
   at org.hibernate.hql.classic.ParserHelper.parse(ParserHelper.java:28)
   at org.hibernate.hql.classic.QueryTranslatorImpl.compile(QueryTranslatorImpl.java:216)
   at org.hibernate.hql.classic.QueryTranslatorImpl.compile(QueryTranslatorImpl.java:185)
   at org.hibernate.engine.query.HQLQueryPlan.<init>(HQLQueryPlan.java:77)
   at org.hibernate.engine.query.HQLQueryPlan.<init>(HQLQueryPlan.java:56)
   at org.hibernate.engine.query.QueryPlanCache.getHQLQueryPlan(QueryPlanCache.java:72)
   at org.hibernate.impl.AbstractSessionImpl.getHQLQueryPlan(AbstractSessionImpl.java:133)
   at org.hibernate.impl.AbstractSessionImpl.createQuery(AbstractSessionImpl.java:112)
   at org.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl.createQuery(SessionImpl.java:1623)

I also referred to the documentation at http://www.hibernate.org/hib_docs/reference/en/html/batch.html#batch-direct and don't see anything wrong with the usage. I searched and didn't find anything useful, so I would appreciate any help.

ramnath · **Posted:** Tue Dec 04, 2007 4:11 am

Hi Harid,

Try to change the classic parser to ANTLR based parser.
<prop key="hibernate.query.factory_class">org.hibernate.hql.ast.ASTQueryTranslatorFactory</prop>

Look into the below thread..
http://forum.hibernate.org/viewtopic.ph ... ect+delete

haridsv · **Joined:** Wed Oct 18, 2006 5:45 pm **Posts:** 2

ramnath wrote:

Hi Harid,

Try to change the classic parser to ANTLR based parser.
<prop key="hibernate.query.factory_class">org.hibernate.hql.ast.ASTQueryTranslatorFactory</prop>

Look into the below thread..
http://forum.hibernate.org/viewtopic.ph ... ect+delete

Thanks for your helpful answer. I changed the factory class to "classic" a few days back to accommodate existing queries without having to update, and didn't realize that it would come back and bite me. I think I am now forced to update them as I will have to support quite a few delete queries as well.

The documentation says that the ANTLR based parser is not mature yet, and recommends using the classic parser for now. Is there a way to use delete queries while using the classic parser? I am suspecting that I will get into a bigger hole trying to solve all the issues with the existing queries and the ANTLR parser not being backwards compatible.