Managing & Using MySQL, 2nd Edition

The JDBC API

Like all Java APIs, JDBC is a set of classes and interfaces that work together to support a specific set of functionality. In the case of JDBC, this functionality is database access. The classes and interfaces that make up the JDBC API are thus abstractions from concepts common to database access for any kind of database. A Connection, for example, is a Java interface representing a database connection. Similarly, a ResultSet represents a result set of data returned from an SQL SELECT. Java combines the classes that form the JDBC API in the java.sql package, which Sun introduced in JDK 1.1.

The underlying details of database access naturally differ from vendor to vendor. JDBC does not actually deal with those details. Most of the classes in the java.sql package are in fact interfaces with no implementation details. Individual database vendors provide implementations of these interfaces in the form of something called a JDBC driver. As a database programmer, however, you need to know only a few details about the driver you are using—the rest you manage via the JDBC interfaces.

The first database-dependent thing you need to know is what drivers exist for your database. Different people provide different JDBC implementations for a variety of databases. As a database programmer, you should select a JDBC implementation that will provide the greatest stability and performance for your application. Though it may seem counterintuitive, JDBC implementations provided by the ...