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== findOrCreateWhere



=== Purpose


Uses named arguments that match the property names of the domain class to produce a query that returns the first result.  This method behaves just like link:{domainClassesRefFromRef}findWhere.html[findWhere] except that it will never return `null`.  If a matching instance cannot be found then a new instance will be created, populated with values from the query parameters and returned.  The difference between this method and link:{domainClassesRefFromRef}findOrSaveWhere.html[findOrSaveWhere] is that this method will not save a newly created instance where link:{domainClassesRefFromRef}findOrSaveWhere.html[findOrSaveWhere] does.


=== Examples


Given the domain class:

[source,groovy]
----
class Book {

   String title
   Date releaseDate
   String author

   static constraints = {
      releaseDate nullable: true
   }
}
----

You can query in the form:

[source,groovy]
----
def book = Book.findOrCreateWhere(author: "Stephen King", title: "The Stand")
----


=== Description


Parameters:

* `queryParams` - A `Map` of key/value pairs to be used in the query. If no matching instance is found then this data is used to initialize a new instance.
