4.1 Introduction

JDBC defines an API that allows an application to access the services of a relational DBMS. The design of JDBC was strongly influenced by call-level APIs that have become widely accepted in the industry, specifically Microsoft's ODBC and SQL/CLI, ^[1] on which ODBC is based. Like these APIs, JDBC provides a method of connecting to a remote database, executing ad hoc SQL statements, and examining the results of those statements.

JavaSoft has provided an API that will feel natural to Java programmers. They have addressed the mapping of data types between SQL and Java, including the representation of SQL's null values. In addition, they have extended the Java exception mechanism in a way that captures SQL's SQLSTATE parameter facilities.

JDK 1.1 was the first JDK to provide the JDBC 1.0 API (JDBC 1.22 can be installed on JDK 1.0.2). This chapter discusses the JDBC 1.0 API, ^[2] which is widely implemented and used today. Chapter 9 will discuss the JDBC 2.0 Core API, which is provided in JDK 1.2.

JDBC provides the java.sql.DriverManager class, which allows the registration and use of JDBC drivers provided by DBMS and middleware vendors. These drivers provide access to a wide range of DBMSs. JDBC does not provide any data management services of its own. The JDBC API is provided by the java.sql package.

This chapter gives an overview of the JDBC 1.0 API. It does not discuss all of the methods provided in JDBC's classes and interfaces. For...