First Step towards JDBC!

First Step towards JDBC! First Step towards JDBC Introduction T his article introduce you with JDBC and shows you how to create a database application to access the databases. For the shake of simplicity, in very first example Access database and

First Step towards JDBC!

First Step towards JDBC

     

Introduction

This article introduce you with JDBC and shows you how to create a database application to access the databases. For the shake of simplicity, in very first example Access database and Sun's JDBC-ODBC drivers are used. In the later sections we will show you how to use JDBC from your servlets or JSP pages to create dynamic pages or to store the data received from visitors.

What is JDBC?

Java Database Connectivity or JDBC for short is set of Java API's that enables the developers to create platform and database independent applications in java. The biggest advantage of programming in Java is its platform independence. An application written to access the MS Access database on Win 95/Win NT platform can work on Linux against Oracle database, only by changing the name of driver, provided none of the database calls it makes are vendor specific.

What are JDBC Drivers?

JDBC Drivers are set of classes that enables the Java application to communicate with databases. Java.sql that ships with JDK contains various classes for using relational databases. But these classes do not provide any implementation, only the behaviours are defined. The actual implementaions are done in third-party drivers. Third party vendors implements the java.sql.Driver interface in their database driver. 

JDBC Drivers Types

Sun has defined four JDBC driver types. These are:

  1. Type 1: JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver
    The first type of JDBC dirver is JDBC-ODBC Bridge which provide JDBC access to any ODBC complaint databases through ODBC drivers. Sun's JDBC-ODBC bridge is example of type 1 driver.
  2. Type 2: Native -API Partly - Java Driver
    Type 2 drivers are developed using native code libraries, which were originally designed for accessing the database through C/C++. Here a thin code of Java wrap around the native code and converts JDBC commands to DBMS-specific native calls.
  3. Type 3: JDBC-Net Pure Java Driver
    Type 3 drivers are a three-tier solutions. This type of driver communicates to a middleware component which in turn connects to database and provide database connectivity.
  4. Type 4: Native-Protocol Pure Java Driver
    Type 4 drivers are entirely written in Java that communicate directly with vendor's database through socket connection. Here no translation or middleware layer, are required which improves performance tremendously.

  Links to JDBC Drivers Site   Here is the link of some of the site providing the JDBC drivers:

  1. MERANT DataDirect provides JDBC driver technology through n-tier, server-based data connectivity and high-performance, DBMS-independent JDBC middleware.
     
  2. MM MySQL JDBC DRIVERS - 100% pure java driver for MySQL and is distributed  under the GNU LGPL.
      
  3. The mSQL JDBC Driver-A pure-java JDBC driver for mSQL was created and is being maintained by George Reese from The Center for Imaginary Environments.
     

A list of currently available JDBC drivers can be found at http://java.sun.com/products/jdbc/jdbc.drivers.html

You can easily find the JDBC driver for SQL Server and all other database servers by surfing the following link:
http://industry.java.sun.com/products/jdbc/drivers

Tutorials

  1. First Step towards JDBC
  2. Accessing the Database from Servlet
  3. Accessing Databases Using Java and JDBC
  4. First Step towards JDBC!
  5. First Step towards JDBC!
  6. Accessing Database from servlets through JDBC!
  7. JDBC, JDBC Tutorial, JDBC Tutorials
  8. What is JDBC?
  9. Product Components of JDBC
  10. Understanding the JDBC Architecture
  11. JDBC Driver and Its Types
  12. JDBC Versions
  13. Features of JDBC 3.0 API
  14. Features of JDBC 4.0
  15. Difference between JDBC 3.0 & JDBC 4.0
  16. Relational Database Concepts
  17. Understanding Common SQL statements
  18. Important JDBC Concepts
  19. Introduction to java.sql package
  20. Driver Manager Class
  21. Understanding Data Source
  22. Understanding Connection Object
  23. Mapping MySQL Data Types in Java
  24. Connecting to a MySQL Database in Java
  25. Creating a Database in MySQL
  26. Creating a Database Table
  27. Creating a MySQL Database Table to store Java Types
  28. Description of Database Table
  29. Deleting a Table from Database
  30. Retrieving Tables from a Database
  31. Inserting values in MySQL database table
  32. Retrieving All Rows from a Database Table
  33. Adding a New Column Name in Database Table
  34. Change Column Name of a Table
  35. Make Unique Column in Database Table
  36. Remove Unique Column in Database Table
  37. Arrange a Column of Database Table
  38. Arrange a Column of Database Table
  39. Sum of Column in a Database Table
  40. Deleting All Rows from a Database Table