JavaData & JavaManipulating a Database with JDBC

Manipulating a Database with JDBC

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Java programs communicate with the database and manipulate its data with the help of the JDBC API. The JDBC driver enables the Java application to connect to a database. JDBC is almost always used with relational databases, also it can be used with any other table based data source. We do not have to worry about the availability of a driver, as major RDBMS (Relational Database  Management System) providers provide them free. Apart from that there are many third-party JDBC drivers available.

Basic Requirements

Since we shall be going hands on down the line, the basic software requirements for JDBC programming are as follows.

1.Java SDK

2.RDBMS Package (For example, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, etc.)

3.IDE (For example, Eclipse, NetBeans, JDeveloper, etc.)

4.JDBC driver (JDBC drivers are database specific, especially, if we use a driver other than Type1:JDBC-ODBC Bridge. For example, MySQL Connector/J is the official JDBC driver for MySQL, ojdbc for Oracle and so on…PostgreSQL JDBC Driver)

Installation is pretty straightforward; if in doubt, refer to the appropriate installation instruction of the relevant packages during installation.

JDBC Programming Steps

Every Java code in JDBC Programming goes through the following six steps in one way or the other. These steps give an idea about what order to follow during coding and a basic insight into their significance.

1. Importing java.sql Package

Almost all the classes and interfaces used in JDBC programming are compiled in the java.sql package. As a result it is our primary requirement to import the package as follows.

import java.sql.*;

2. Load and Register JDBC Driver

The most common and easiest way to load the driver is by using the Class.forName() method.

Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");

This method takes the complete package name of the driver as its argument. Once the driver is loaded, it will call the DriverManager.registerDriver() method to register itself. Registering a driver implies that the currently registered driver is added to a list of available Driver objects maintained by the DriverManager. The driver manager serves the request from the application using one of the lists of available Driver objects.

3. Establishing Connection

The standard method to establish a connection to a database is through the method call DriverManager.getConnection(). The arguments accepted by this method are: a string representation of the database URL, the user name to log in to the database and the password.

DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost/hr","user1","pass");

4. Creating a Statement

We need to create a Statement object to execute a static SQL query. Static SQL statements can be updates, inserts, queries and even DDL SQL statements. Statement objects are created  with the help of the Connection object’s  createStatement() method as follows:

Statement statement = connection.createStatement();

5. Execute SQL Statement and Retrieve Result

We can use the executeQuery() method of the Statement object to fire the query to the database. This method takes an SQL query string as an argument and returns the result as a ResultSet object. The ResultSet object contains both the data returned by the query and methods for retrieving the data.

ResultSet resultSet=statement.executeQuery("SELECT
* FROM employees");

The get methods of the ResultSet object can be used to retrieve each of the fields in the record fetched from the database into java variables.

while(resultSet.next()){
      System.out.println(resultSet.getString(“emp_id”));
      System.out.println(resultSet.getString(“first_name”));
      System.out.println(resultSet.getString(“last_name”));
      ...
      }

6. Close Connection

It is highly recommended that an application should close the Connection object and Statement objects explicitly, because, earlier opened connections can cause trouble for the database and open connections are also prone to security threats. Simply add following statements:

statement.close();
connection.close();

Putting it Together

Let us create an application to demonstrate the CRUD operation to manipulate the database records. CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update and Delete. We shall fetch the database record with a Read operation, create a new record and save it into the database with a Create operation, modify the existing record with an Update operation and remove a record from the database with a Delete operation. Observe that the code below is self-explanatory and almost repetitive with a few significant lines actually invoking the change in the operation. To get a deeper grasp on the Java SQL library functions, refer to the Java API documentation.

//import statements...
 
public class Main {
 
       private static final String JDBC_DRIVER = "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver";
       private static final String DATABASE_URL = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/hr";
       private static final String USERNAME = "admin";
       private static final String PASSWORD = "secret";
       
 
/* This operation creates the table in the database which otherwise have to be created through SQL DDL. This operation is given for convenience and does not belong to the CRUD operation we are talking of. Nonetheless novice programmer may find it useful as of how to create a table through Java code...*/
 
       public static void createTable(){
             Connection connection = null;
             Statement statement = null;
             try {
                    Class.forName(JDBC_DRIVER);
                    connection = DriverManager.getConnection(DATABASE_URL, USERNAME,
                                  PASSWORD);
                    statement = connection.createStatement();
                    //boolean b=statement.execute("DROP TABLE IF EXISTS emp");
                    boolean b=statement.execute("CREATE TABLE emp(id int primary key,name varchar(15),department int,salary int,location varchar(20))");
                    if(b==true)
                           System.out.println("Tables created...");
             } catch (SQLException sqlEx) {
                    sqlEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } catch (ClassNotFoundException clsNotFoundEx) {
                    clsNotFoundEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } finally {
                    try {
                           statement.close();
                           connection.close();
                    } catch (Exception e) {
                           System.exit(1);
                    }
             }
       }
 
 
 
       public static void createEmployee(int id, String name, int dept, int sal, String loc){
             Connection connection = null;
             PreparedStatement preparedStatement = null;
             try {
                    Class.forName(JDBC_DRIVER);
                    connection = DriverManager.getConnection(DATABASE_URL, USERNAME,PASSWORD);
                    preparedStatement = connection.prepareStatement("INSERT INTO emp VALUES(?,?,?,?,?)");
                    preparedStatement.setInt(1, id);
                    preparedStatement.setString(2, name);
                    preparedStatement.setInt(3, dept);
                    preparedStatement.setInt(4, sal);
                    preparedStatement.setString(5, loc);
                    boolean b=preparedStatement.execute();
                    if(b==true)
                           System.out.println("1 record inserted...");
             } catch (SQLException sqlEx) {
                    sqlEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } catch (ClassNotFoundException clsNotFoundEx) {
                    clsNotFoundEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } finally {
                    try {
                           preparedStatement.close();
                           connection.close();
                    } catch (Exception e) {
                           System.exit(1);
                    }
             }
       }
       
       public static void updateSalary(int id, int raise){
             Connection connection = null;
             PreparedStatement preparedStatement = null;
             try {
                    Class.forName(JDBC_DRIVER);
                    connection = DriverManager.getConnection(DATABASE_URL, USERNAME,PASSWORD);
                    preparedStatement = connection.prepareStatement("UPDATE emp SET salary=salary+? WHERE id=?");
                    preparedStatement.setInt(1, raise);                   
                    preparedStatement.setInt(2, id);
                    boolean b=preparedStatement.execute();
                    if(b==true)
                           System.out.println("$"+raise+" raised for emp id="+id);
             } catch (SQLException sqlEx) {
                    sqlEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } catch (ClassNotFoundException clsNotFoundEx) {
                    clsNotFoundEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } finally {
                    try {
                           preparedStatement.close();
                           connection.close();
                    } catch (Exception e) {
                           System.exit(1);
                    }
             }
       }
       
       public static void deleteEmployee(int id){
             Connection connection = null;
             PreparedStatement preparedStatement = null;
             try {
                    Class.forName(JDBC_DRIVER);
                    connection = DriverManager.getConnection(DATABASE_URL, USERNAME,PASSWORD);
                    preparedStatement = connection.prepareStatement("DELETE FROM emp WHERE id=?");
                    preparedStatement.setInt(1, id);               
                    boolean b=preparedStatement.execute();
                    if(b==true)
                           System.out.println("1 record deleted...");
             } catch (SQLException sqlEx) {
                    sqlEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } catch (ClassNotFoundException clsNotFoundEx) {
                    clsNotFoundEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } finally {
                    try {
                           preparedStatement.close();
                           connection.close();
                    } catch (Exception e) {
                           System.exit(1);
                    }
             }
       }
       
       public static void readEmployees() {
             Connection connection = null;
             Statement statement = null;
             try {
                    Class.forName(JDBC_DRIVER);
                    connection = DriverManager.getConnection(DATABASE_URL, USERNAME,
                                  PASSWORD);
                    statement = connection.createStatement();
                    ResultSet resultSet = statement.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM emp");
                    ResultSetMetaData metaData = resultSet.getMetaData();
                    int noCols = metaData.getColumnCount();
                    for (int i = 1; i <= noCols; i++) {
                           if (i != 3)
                                  System.out.printf("%-10st", metaData.getColumnName(i).toUpperCase());
                    }
                    System.out.println();
                    while (resultSet.next()) {
                           for (int i = 1; i <= noCols; i++) {
                                  if (i != 3)
                                        System.out.printf("%-10st", resultSet.getObject(i));
                           }
                           System.out.println();
                    }
             } catch (SQLException sqlEx) {
                    sqlEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } catch (ClassNotFoundException clsNotFoundEx) {
                    clsNotFoundEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } finally {
                    try {
                           statement.close();
                           connection.close();
                    } catch (Exception e) {
                           System.exit(1);
                    }
             }
       }
       
       public static void readEmployee(int id) {
             Connection connection = null;
             Statement statement = null;
             try {
                    Class.forName(JDBC_DRIVER);
                    connection = DriverManager.getConnection(DATABASE_URL, USERNAME,
                                  PASSWORD);
                    statement = connection.createStatement();
                    ResultSet resultSet = statement.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM emp WHERE id="+id);
                    ResultSetMetaData metaData = resultSet.getMetaData();
                    int noCols = metaData.getColumnCount();
                    for (int i = 1; i <= noCols; i++) {
                           if (i != 3)
                                  System.out.printf("%-10st", metaData.getColumnName(i).toUpperCase());
                    }
                    System.out.println();
                    while (resultSet.next()) {
                           for (int i = 1; i <= noCols; i++) {
                                  if (i != 3)
                                        System.out.printf("%-10st", resultSet.getObject(i));
                           }
                           System.out.println();
                    }
             } catch (SQLException sqlEx) {
                    sqlEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } catch (ClassNotFoundException clsNotFoundEx) {
                    clsNotFoundEx.printStackTrace();
                    System.exit(1);
             } finally {
                    try {
                           statement.close();
                           connection.close();
                    } catch (Exception e) {
                           System.exit(1);
                    }
             }
       }
       
       public static void main(String[] args) {
             //createTable();
             createEmployee(1234, "Larson", 123, 1200, "New Jersey");
             createEmployee(5678, "Jones", 123, 1100, "New Jersey");
             createEmployee(7890, "Kapil", 345, 1600, "Los Angeles");
             createEmployee(2341, "Myers", 123, 1800, "New Jersey");
             createEmployee(6784, "Bruce", 345, 2200, "Los Angeles");
             createEmployee(9636, "Neumann", 123, 3200, "New Jersey");
             updateSalary(1234, 1000);
             createEmployee(1111, "Lee", 123, 4400, "New Jersey");
             deleteEmployee(1111);
             readEmployees();
             readEmployee(6784);
       }
}
 

Conclusion

Once one gets an idea of the CRUD operations of JDBC programming and how to write them, it’s just a matter of practice to master the intricacies of database manipulation. The above example is very minimalistic and a lot of checking/cross checking during data manipulation has been overlooked to keep it simple. For example the code can have a search method, which would actually use the same CRUD techniques, a checking should be there to verify the existence of a record before updating a record etc. However, if one grasps the CRUD techniques described above in Java code, the rest is just a walk in the park.

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