Pagination and Sorting in H2 with Spring Boot

October 20, 2025

This guide shows how to implement pagination and sorting with H2 database in Spring Boot using Spring Data JPA.

1. Add Dependencies

In pom.xml:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
  <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
</dependency>

2. Configure H2

In application.properties:

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:h2:mem:testdb
spring.datasource.driver-class-name=org.h2.Driver
spring.datasource.username=sa
spring.datasource.password=
spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=update
spring.jpa.show-sql=true

3. Create Entity

import jakarta.persistence.*;

@Entity
public class Book {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;
    private String title;
    private String author;
}

4. Repository with Paging

import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;

public interface BookRepository extends JpaRepository<Book, Long> {
}

5. Service for Pagination and Sorting

import org.springframework.data.domain.*;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;

@Service
public class BookService {
    private final BookRepository repo;

    public BookService(BookRepository repo) {
        this.repo = repo;
    }

    public Page<Book> getBooks(int page, int size, String sortBy) {
        Pageable pageable = PageRequest.of(page, size, Sort.by(sortBy));
        return repo.findAll(pageable);
    }
}

6. REST Controller

import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.*;
import org.springframework.data.domain.Page;

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/books")
public class BookController {
    private final BookService service;

    public BookController(BookService service) {
        this.service = service;
    }

    @GetMapping
    public Page<Book> list(@RequestParam int page,
                           @RequestParam int size,
                           @RequestParam String sortBy) {
        return service.getBooks(page, size, sortBy);
    }
}

7. Test Pagination and Sorting

Run the app and try:

http://localhost:8080/books?page=0&size=5&sortBy=title

You’ll get the first 5 books sorted by title.