hibernate/hibernate-orm · error · OrderByComplianceViolation

@OrderBy expression (%s) is not a domain-model reference, wh

Error message

@OrderBy expression (%s) is not a domain-model reference, which violates the Jakarta Persistence specification - %s

What it means

Error "@OrderBy expression (%s) is not a domain-model reference, which violates the Jakarta Persistence specification - %s" thrown in hibernate/hibernate-orm.

Source

Thrown at hibernate-core/src/main/java/org/hibernate/metamodel/mapping/ordering/ast/ParseTreeVisitor.java:68

			for ( int i = 0; i < size; i += 2 ) {
				specifications.add( visitSortSpecification( (OrderingParser.SortSpecificationContext) ctx.getChild( i ) ) );
			}
			return specifications;
		}
	}

	@Override
	public OrderingSpecification visitSortSpecification(OrderingParser.SortSpecificationContext parsedSpec) {
		assert parsedSpec != null;
		assert parsedSpec.expression() != null;

		final OrderingExpression orderingExpression = (OrderingExpression) parsedSpec.getChild( 0 ).accept( this );
		if ( translationContext.getJpaCompliance().isJpaOrderByMappingComplianceEnabled() ) {
			if ( orderingExpression instanceof DomainPath ) {
				// nothing to do
			}
			else {
				throw new OrderByComplianceViolation(
						String.format(
								Locale.ROOT,
								"@OrderBy expression (%s) is not a domain-model reference, which violates the Jakarta Persistence specification - %s",
								parsedSpec.expression().getText(),
								orderingExpression.toDescriptiveText()
						)
				);
			}
		}

		final OrderingSpecification result = new OrderingSpecification( orderingExpression, parsedSpec.getChild( 0 ).getText() );
		int i = 1;

		if ( parsedSpec.getChildCount() > i ) {
			final ParseTree parseTree = parsedSpec.getChild( i );
			if ( parseTree instanceof OrderingParser.CollationSpecificationContext ) {
				result.setCollation( (String) parseTree.getChild( 1 ).getChild( 0 ).accept( this ) );
				i++;

View on GitHub (pinned to fad1729dce)

Solutions

1. Rewrite the @OrderBy expression to reference domain-model attributes (e.g. 'name' or 'address.city') instead of SQL fragments or functions.

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown when an @OrderBy expression references something other than a domain-model path (e.g. a SQL function or literal), violating the JPA specification.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of hibernate/hibernate-orm@fad1729dce (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/dcb36a63f152a78c. Report an issue: GitHub.