No support to refer to root criteria alias from subquery

[snimavat]

What i am trying to achieve is almost similar to what discussed here http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Subqueries-in-criteria-tp1678501p3078371.html --

Given the domain classes

Book {
   Author author
   Date datePublished
}

Author {
   Date dob
}

I would like to find all authors who has published book in 2016 (using criteria and exists)

So i would expect some thing like this to work

Author.withCriteria {
  exists(Book.where({
    datePublished = xxx
   eqProperty("author.id", "this.id") //here i am trying to access the root criteria alias using this.
}).id())
}

However this doesnt give the expected result, and generated sql query looks wrong.

What is expected:
A way to refer to root criteria alias, when doing subqueries

[graemerocher]

The above is already possible with where queries. See commit above.

[snimavat]

@graemerocher - yes, creating alias that way for where queries is already explained on reference documentation... However that does not work when i want to use detached criteria/(or where query) as subquery in Criteria query (withCriteria/createCriteria).

See my example for Author criteria, creating alias as you mentioned wont work there.

[snimavat]

I think the issue here is, the alias for criteria and alias for subquery conflicts as both are using the "this" as alias.

So probably one solution is to do

def sub = Book.where({
    datePublished = xxx
   eqProperty("author.id", "this.id") //here i am trying to access the root criteria alias using this.
}).id()

Author.withCriteria {
  exists(sub.setAlias("book"))
}

[snimavat]

is there a way to use alias as u explained, with detached criteria as subquery for a criteria (see my original example at the top)

Or it must be done as my above post ?

Looks like its possible only with where queries, but not when u use where query as subquery to a criteria