## 5.4 Querying with GORM

GORM supports a number of powerful ways to query from dynamic finders, to criteria to Hibernate's object oriented query language HQL.

Groovy's ability to manipulate collections via GPath and methods like sort, findAll and so on combined with GORM results in a powerful combination.

However, let's start with the basics.

#### Listing instances

If you simply need to obtain all the instances of a given class you can use the list method:

    def books = Book.list()

The list method supports arguments to perform pagination:

    def books = Book.list(offset:10, max:20)

as well as sorting:

    def books = Book.list(sort:"title", order:"asc")

Here, the `sort` argument is the name of the domain class property that you wish to sort on, and the `order` argument is either `asc` for ascending or `desc` for descending.

#### Retrieval by Database Identifier

The second basic form of retrieval is by database identifier using the get method:

    def book = Book.get(23)

You can also obtain a list of instances for a set of identifiers using getAll:

    def books = Book.getAll(23, 93, 81)