MySQL and mSQL

Chapter 14. Java and JDBC

In Chapter 13, we introduced you to the C APIs for MySQL and mSQL. Unfortunately, each API only enables you to program for the database it supports. If you are looking to port an application between MySQL and mSQL, or even worse, if you are looking to make an application work on Oracle or Sybase or any other database engine, you must rewrite your database code to make use of that database engine’s proprietary API. Java programmers, however, are mostly freed from database portability issues. They have a single API, the Java DataBase Connectivity API (JDBC), that provides them with a unified interface into all SQL databases.

Because JDBC is a single interface to all databases, you need only to learn it in order to be able to write applications that run on both MySQL and mSQL. In fact, as long as you write proper JDBC code, the Java applications you write will be able to run against any database engine. If you have access to a database other than MySQL or mSQL, you should give this claim a test by running this chapter’s examples on that database.

In this chapter, we are assuming a basic understanding of the Java programming language and Java concepts. If you do not already have this background, we strongly recommend taking a look at Exploring Java (O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.). For more details on how to build the sort of three-tier database applications we discussed in Chapter 8, take a look at Database Programming with JDBC and Java (O’Reilly & Associates, ...