JDBC FAQs

1:   What is the difference between Database and Database management system?

  Ans:    Database is a collection of interrelated data. Database management system is a software which can be used to manage the data by storing it on to the data base and by retrieving it from the data base.  And  DBMS is a collection of interrelated data and some set of programs to access the data.

 

  There are 3 types of Database Management Systems.

• Relational DataBase Management Systems(RDBMS):  It is a software system, which can be used to represents data in the form of tables. RDBMS will use SQL2 as a Queries  language. 

 

• Object Oriented DataBase Management Systems(OODBMS):  It is a software system, which can be used to represent the data in the form of objects. This DBMS will use OQL as a Query language.

 

• Object Relational DataBase Management Systems(ORDBMS):  It is a DBMS which will represents some part of the data in the form of tables and some other part of the data in the form of objects. This management system will use SQL3 as a Query Language, it is a combination of  SQL2 and OQL.

2: How a query could be executed when we send a query to Database?  
When we send an SQL Query from SQL prompt to the DataBaseEngine, then Database Engine will take the following steps.

• Query Tokenization:  This phase will take SQL query as an input and devide into stream of tokens.

• Query Parsing:   This phase will take stream of tokens as an input, with them it tried to construct a query tree. If query parser constructs query tree successfully then it was an indication that no grammatical mistakes in the taken SQL query. Otherwise there are some syntactical errors in the taken SQL query.

• Query Optimization:   This phase will take query tree as an input and performs number of query optimization mechanisms to reduce execution time and memory utilization.

• Query Execution:  This phase will take optimized query as an input and executes that SQL query by using interpreters internally as a result we will get some output on the SQL prompt.

3: What is  Driver? How many Drivers are available in JDBC? What are the types?

•  It is a process of interacting with the database from a java application.
• In JDBC applications we must specify the complete database logic in java application as for the java API representations, later on we need to send java represented database logic to the database engine(DBE).
• DBE must execute the database logic but it was configured as per the java representations but DBE able to understand only Query Language representations.
• At the above situation if we want to execute our database logic, we need to use one interface in between java application and the database, that interface must convert java representations to query language representations and query language representations to java representations. Now this interface is called as a “Driver”.

Driver:

• It is a software or an interface existed in between a java application and database, which will map java api calls with query language api calls and vice versa.
• Initially sun Microsystems has provided “driver interface” to the market with this sun Microsystems has given an intimation to all the database vendors to have their own implementation as per their requirements for the Driver interface.
• As a response all the database vendors are providing their own implementation for the Driver interface inorder to interact with the respective databases from a java application.
• The users of the respective databases they must get the respective database provided Driver implementation from the database software and make use as part of the JDBC applications to interact with the respective databases form a java application.

Types of Drivers: 

 There are 180+  number of Drivers in the market. But all these Drivers could be classified into the following 4 types.

• Type 1 Driver
• Type 2 Driver
• Type 3 Driver
• Type 4 Driver

Type 1 Driver:

• Type 1 Driver is also called as Jdbc-Odbc Driver or Bridge Driver.
• Jdbc-Odbc Driver is an implementation to Driver interface provided by the sun Microsystems along with the java software.
• Jdbc-Odbc Driver internally depends on the Microsoft product Odbc Driver.
• Odbc is nothing but open database connectivity. It is a open specification which can be used to interact with any type of databases.

Advantages:

• This Driver is already available with java software that’s why no need to bother about how to get the Driver implementation explicitily.
• Allmost all the databases could support this Driver.

Dis advantages:

• This Driver internally depends on Odbc Driver that’s why it is not suitable for internet or web applications or network applications.
• This Driver is a slower Driver, why because Jdbc-Odbc Driver will convert java calls to Odbc calls. Then Odbc Driver has to convert Odbc calls to query language calls.
• This driver is not portable Driver why because it was not complete the java implementations in Jdbc-Odbc Driver.
• It we want to use Jdbc-Odbc Driver in our jdbc applications then we must require to install Odbc-Native Library.

Type 2 Driver:

            Type 2 Driver is also called as “part java part native Driver”. i.e., this Driver was designed by using some part of the java implementations and some other part of the database vendor provided native implementations. This Driver is also called as “native driver”.

Advantages:   When compared to Type 1 driver it is efficient driver why because Type 2 driver directly will convert java api calls to database vendor api calls.

Dis advantages:

• If we want to use Type 2 Driver in our Jdbc applications then we must require to install database vendor native api.
• It is a costful Driver.
• It is not suitable for web applicadtions, distributed applications and web applications.
• Type 2 Driver performance is low when compared to Type 3 and Type 4 drivers.
• This driver is not portable driver. Why because this driver was not designed completely in java technology.

Type 3 Driver: 

• It is also called as middleware database access server driver.
• This driver could be used to interact with multiple databases from the multiple clients.
• This driver could be used in collaboration with application server.
• This driver is suggestable for network applications.

Advantages:

• It is a fastest driver among all the drivers available in the market.
• To use Type 3 driver in our jdbc applications it is not required to install odbc native library and database native library.
• It is very much suitable for network applications.

Dis advantages:

• This driver is not suitable for simple jdbc applications.
• This driver requires minimum 3-Tier Architecture.
• When compared to Type1 and Type2 drivers.. Type3 driver is efficient and portable. But when compared to Type4 driver, Type3 driver is not portable.

Type 4 Driver:

• This driver is also called as pure java driver i.e, this driver was completely implemented by using java technology.
• When compared to Type1, Type2 and Type3 drivers.. Type4 driver is portable driver.
• Type4 driver can be used for any kind of applications.
• Type4 driver is a cheapest driver when compared to all the drivers that’s why it is frequently used driver.

4: What is JDBC and What are the steps to write a JDBC application? 

  The process of interacting with the database from a java application is called as JDBC(Java Database Connectivity) To interact with the database from a java application we will use the following five   steps.

1. load and register the driver.
2. Establish a connection between java application and the database.
3. prepare either statement object or PreparedStatement object or CallebleStatement object as per the application requirements.
4. write and executer the sql queries.
5. terminate the connection which we have established.

5:  How to load a JDBC driver?

• In general sun Microsystems  has provided Driver interface for this all the database vendors has provided their own implementation.

 

• If we want to use the database vendor provided Driver implementation to our jdbc application, first we need to make the availability of the respective Driver’s   .class file to JVM, for this we need to set class path environment variable to the location where we have the driver implementation.

•  Sun Microsystems is also provided an implementation to the Driver interface in the form of JdbcOdbcDriver class as part of the java software.

•  If we want to use JdbcOdbcDriver in our jdbc applications no need to set class path environment variable. Why because it was already available in the java software’s pre-defined library.

•  JdbcOdbcDriver internally depends on the mocrosoft product Odbc driver. If we want to use the JdbcOdbcDriver in our jdbc applications first we must configure Odbc driver, for this we will use the following path.

Start/ conrlol panel / performance and maintenance / administrative tools / data source(Odbc)/ user dsn / click on Add / select microsofr Odbc for oracle / finish / provide data source name only / click on ok / ok.

• To load the driver’s class byte code to the memory we will use the following method.

Public void forName(String class name)

Eg:    Class.forName(“sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver”);

      Where forName() is a static method, which can be used to load the respective driver class byte code to the memory.

• Each and every driver class has already a static block at the time of loading the respective driver class byte code to the memory automatically the available static block could be executed, by this  DriverManager.registerDriver(….) method will be executed as part of the static block.

•  By the execution of the registerDriver(….) method automatically the specified driver will be register to the jdbc application.

•  If you want to design any jdbc application, we need to use some pre-defined library, which was provided by the Jdbc API in the form of java.sql package, that’s why we need to import java.sql package in our jdbc application.

Note:-   The best alternative for Class.forName(..) is

 DriverManagre.registerDriver(new sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver());     (To register the driver.)

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