The Java Tutorials have been written for JDK 8. Examples and practices described in this page don't take advantage of improvements introduced in later releases and might use technology no longer available.
See Java Language Changes for a summary of updated language features in Java SE 9 and subsequent releases.
See JDK Release Notes for information about new features, enhancements, and removed or deprecated options for all JDK releases.
In general, to process any SQL statement with JDBC, you follow these steps:
ResultSet
object.This page uses the following method,
CoffeesTable.viewTable
, from the tutorial sample to demonstrate these steps. This method outputs the contents of the table COFFEES
. This method will be discussed in more detail later in this tutorial:
public static void viewTable(Connection con) throws SQLException { String query = "select COF_NAME, SUP_ID, PRICE, SALES, TOTAL from COFFEES"; try (Statement stmt = con.createStatement()) { ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(query); while (rs.next()) { String coffeeName = rs.getString("COF_NAME"); int supplierID = rs.getInt("SUP_ID"); float price = rs.getFloat("PRICE"); int sales = rs.getInt("SALES"); int total = rs.getInt("TOTAL"); System.out.println(coffeeName + ", " + supplierID + ", " + price + ", " + sales + ", " + total); } } catch (SQLException e) { JDBCTutorialUtilities.printSQLException(e); } }
First, establish a connection with the data source you want to use. A data source can be a DBMS, a legacy file system, or some other source of data with a corresponding JDBC driver. This connection is represented by a Connection
object. See
Establishing a Connection for more information.
A Statement
is an interface that represents a SQL statement. You execute Statement
objects, and they generate ResultSet
objects, which is a table of data representing a database result set. You need a Connection
object to create a Statement
object.
For example, CoffeesTable.viewTable
creates a Statement
object with the following code:
stmt = con.createStatement();
There are three different kinds of statements:
Statement
: Used to implement simple SQL statements with no parameters.PreparedStatement
: (Extends Statement
.) Used for precompiling SQL statements that might contain input parameters. See
Using Prepared Statements for more information.CallableStatement:
(Extends PreparedStatement
.) Used to execute stored procedures that may contain both input and output parameters. See
Stored Procedures for more information.To execute a query, call an execute
method from Statement
such as the following:
execute
: Returns true
if the first object that the query returns is a ResultSet
object. Use this method if the query could return one or more ResultSet
objects. Retrieve the ResultSet
objects returned from the query by repeatedly calling Statement.getResultSet
.executeQuery
: Returns one ResultSet
object.executeUpdate
: Returns an integer representing the number of rows affected by the SQL statement. Use this method if you are using INSERT
, DELETE
, or UPDATE
SQL statements.For example, CoffeesTable.viewTable
executed a Statement
object with the following code:
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(query);
See Retrieving and Modifying Values from Result Sets for more information.
You access the data in a ResultSet
object through a cursor. Note that this cursor is not a database cursor. This cursor is a pointer that points to one row of data in the ResultSet
object. Initially, the cursor is positioned before the first row. You call various methods defined in the ResultSet
object to move the cursor.
For example, CoffeesTable.viewTable
repeatedly calls the method ResultSet.next
to move the cursor forward by one row. Every time it calls next
, the method outputs the data in the row where the cursor is currently positioned:
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(query); while (rs.next()) { String coffeeName = rs.getString("COF_NAME"); int supplierID = rs.getInt("SUP_ID"); float price = rs.getFloat("PRICE"); int sales = rs.getInt("SALES"); int total = rs.getInt("TOTAL"); System.out.println(coffeeName + ", " + supplierID + ", " + price + ", " + sales + ", " + total); } // ...
See Retrieving and Modifying Values from Result Sets for more information.
When you are finished using a Connection
, Statement
, or ResultSet
object, call its close
method to immediately release the resources it's using.
Alternatively, use a try
-with-resources statement to automatically close Connection
, Statement
, and ResultSet
objects, regardless of whether an SQLException
has been thrown. (JDBC throws an SQLException
when it encounters an error during an interaction with a data source. See
Handling SQL Exceptions for more information.)
An automatic resource statement consists of a try
statement and one or more declared resources. For example, the CoffeesTable.viewTable
method automatically closes its Statement
object, as follows:
public static void viewTable(Connection con) throws SQLException { String query = "select COF_NAME, SUP_ID, PRICE, SALES, TOTAL from COFFEES"; try (Statement stmt = con.createStatement()) { ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(query); while (rs.next()) { String coffeeName = rs.getString("COF_NAME"); int supplierID = rs.getInt("SUP_ID"); float price = rs.getFloat("PRICE"); int sales = rs.getInt("SALES"); int total = rs.getInt("TOTAL"); System.out.println(coffeeName + ", " + supplierID + ", " + price + ", " + sales + ", " + total); } } catch (SQLException e) { JDBCTutorialUtilities.printSQLException(e); } }
The following statement is a try
-with-resources statement, which declares one resource, stmt
, that will be automatically closed when the try
block terminates:
try (Statement stmt = con.createStatement()) { // ... }
See
The try
-with-resources Statement in the
Essential Classes trail for more information.