What is JDBC?

Let us try to discuss this from scratch till now in the java domain we were simply writing codes(programming) and interacting with the database. Have you ever wonder imagining how internally our program can be linked to a database giving it enormous power to make projects and applications out of our program. Yes, it is possible with the help of this mechanism. Let us discuss in a real-world scenario which later on we will be mapping with technical terms to get an absolute technical understanding of the same with a pictorial representation.

Real-world example:

Consider two places A and B. Now people residing on A do not know the language of people residing on place B and vice-versa which we will be going to map with technical terms to discuss out major components inside the JDBC.

Mapping the same with technological terms to illustrate above real illustration. Here place A is referred to as a java application and place B is therefore referred to as a database. Now the translator as discussed above which is responsible for converting java application calls to database calls and database calls to java application calls is nothing but a ‘Driver Software’. The road between applications is ‘Connection’ and lastly the vehicle is our ‘statement object’.  Now ‘requirement’ above is our SQL query and the ‘small block’ generated after processing the SQL statement by the database engine has been passed in nothing but ‘ResultSet’. Now, this technology by which java applications is communicating with database is ‘Java Database Connectivity. By now we are done with a crystal clear overview of JDBC and geek you will be surprised that we already have covered it, let dig down to get to know the working of components which will be described up to greater depth in the environment setup of JDBC. 

Now we will penetrate down into the JDBC component which as discussed above is a technology that is used to connect Java applications with the database. It is an API consisting of lots of classes and interfaces by which with the help of some classes and interfaces we are able to connect the java application to the database as pictorially depicted above. It has mainly two packages namely as follows: java.sql package and javax.sql package.

Note: For reference above SQL is taken as database to illustrate packages names.  

JDBC stands for Java Database Connectivity. JDBC is a Java API or tool used in Java applications to interact with the database. It is a specification from Sun Microsystems that provides APIs for Java applications to communicate with different databases. Interfaces and Classes for JDBC API comes under java.sql package. In this Java JDBC tutorial, we will be learning about what is Java Database Connectivity with suitable example.

In the present world, where we mostly deal with websites and databases it is as if they matter the most but if we closely look over it is data that matters the most. If we look closer that all developers are revolving and working over the web and mobile technologies but what remains the same is the data.

Hence, there is an urgency to figure out how data is being handled for which this concept comes into play.

Let us do have an overview of why do we need this term which can be better interpreted with the image provided below.

Why do we need to learn advanced java?

As we are well versed with all the concepts of Core Java now comes the time to build projects that will results out in building an application as a final product.  So if we do are only aware of core java we can only build applications that can be run on the machine where the components of it are stored(in simpler words one can say where all the codes are written). These types of applications are known as standalone applications.

Note: Standalone applications being one of two types of applications in the programming world only holds for 5% of the applications in the real world.  

Hence, the scope is very constricted if we only do build standalone applications resulting out in the very little scope of development and scalability which gives birth to advance java which in turn gives birth to 3 components primarily namely JSP, Servlets, and JDBC in order to make the applications run on multiple machines. With the evolution of these 3 components, it removes the constraint of running only a single machine as it was impractical to users in the real-world application is made but forcing users to install then use them. Now, these types of applications are known as web applications that are the applications providing the services to the end-users without installing them. These applications are known as web applications which are not standalone applications.

Now you must be wondering what is JSP and Servlet and how JDBC is interrelated with them. For the time being, just focus only on JDBC in order to get started with what exactly it is and how to use it by referring to the image depicted below as follows:

Note: Conclusion drawn from Image is as follows:

• JSP stands for Java Server Pages where these pages are considered as View Components as Presentation logic.
• Servlet is meant for internal processing going on such as reading, fetching values from the database, comparison, etc in the backend as Processing Logic in our process servlet. Servlets do also contain java classes for this background processing for processing logic.
• JDBC is meant for Connectivity of Java Application in servlets as discussed to our Database.