PostgreSQL JDBC: Querying Data

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to query data from a table in the PostgreSQL database using JDBC API.

Steps for querying data

To query data from a table using JDBC, you follow these steps:

Establish a database connection to the PostgreSQL server.
Create an instance of the Statement or PreparedStatement object.
Execute a statement to get a ResultSet object.
Process the ResultSet object.
Close the Statement & Connection object by calling their close() method.

If you use the try-with-resources statement, you don’t need to explicitly call the close() method of the Statement or Connection object. It will automatically close these objects.

1) Establishing a database connection

Use the getConnection() method of the DriverManager class to establish a connection to the PostgreSQL server.

return DriverManager.getConnection(url, user, password);

We’ll use the DB class created in the connecting to the PostgreSQL server to connect to the PostgreSQL server.

2) Creating a Statement object

In JDBC, a Statement object represents an SQL statement.

First, create a Statement object from the Connection object.
Then, execute the Statement object to get a ResultSet object that represents a database result set.

JDBC offers three types of Statement objects:

Statement: use the Statement to implement a simple SQL statement that has no parameters.
PreparedStatement: is the subclass of the Statement class, which allows you to bind parameters to the SQL statement.
CallableStatement: extends the PreparedStatement class that can execute a stored procedure.

3) Executing a query

To execute a query, you use one of the following methods of the Statement object:

execute(): Return true if the first object of the query is a ResultSet object. You can get the ResultSet by calling the method getResultSet().
executeQuery(): Return only one ResultSet object.
executeUpdate(): Return the number of rows affected by the statement. Typically, you use this method for executing the INSERT, DELETE, or UPDATE statement.

4) Processing the ResultSet

Once having a ResultSet object, you use a while loop to iterate over the result in the result set:

while (rs.next()) {
   // ...
}

5) Closing a database connection

To close a Statement or Connection object, you call the close() method explicitly in the finally clause of the try...catch...finally statement. This ensures that the resources are closed properly even if any exception occurs.

Starting from JDBC 4.1, you can use a try-with-resources statement to close ResultSet, Statement, and Connection objects automatically.

Querying data examples

Let’s explore some examples of querying data from a table using JDBC.

1) Querying all rows from the products table

Define a new function findAll() in the ProductDB class to retrieve all rows from the products table:

import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.sql.Statement;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class ProductDB {

    public static List<Product> findAll() {
        var products = new ArrayList<Product>();

        var sql = "SELECT id, name, price FROM products ORDER BY name";

        try (var conn =  DB.connect();
             var stmt = conn.createStatement()) {

            var rs = stmt.executeQuery(sql);

            while (rs.next()) {
                var product = new Product(
                        rs.getInt("id"),
                        rs.getString("name"),
                        rs.getDouble("price"));
                products.add(product);
            }
        } catch (SQLException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return products;
    }

    // ...
}

How it works.

First, initialize an ArrayList to store the returned products.

var products = new ArrayList<Product>();

Second, construct a query that retrieves all rows from the products table:

var sql = "SELECT id, name, price FROM products ORDER BY name";

Third, open a database connection and create a Statement object:

try (var conn =  DB.connect();
     var stmt = conn.createStatement()) {
// ..

The try-with-resources will automatically close the Statement and Connection objects.

Fourth, execute the SELECT statement by calling the executeQuery() method:

var rs = stmt.executeQuery(sql);

Fifth, iterate over the result set, initialize the Product object, and add it to the products list:

while (rs.next()) {
    var product = new Product(
        rs.getInt("id"),
        rs.getString("name"),
        rs.getDouble("price")
    );
    products.add(product);
}

Finally, return the products list:

return products;

The following shows how to use the findAll() method of the ProductDB class to retrieve all data from the products table and display each in the standard output:

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        var products = ProductDB.findAll();
        for (var product:  products) {
            System.out.println(product);
        }

    }
}

Output:

Product{id=5, name='Bluetooth Headphones', price=199.0}
Product{id=8, name='Car Mount', price=29.98}
Product{id=1, name='Phone Case', price=19.99}
Product{id=6, name='Phone Stand', price=24.99}
Product{id=2, name='Power Bank', price=19.99}
Product{id=7, name='Ring Holder', price=39.99}
Product{id=3, name='Screen Protector', price=29.99}
Product{id=9, name='Selfie Stick', price=29.99}
Product{id=10, name='Smartwatch', price=399.97}
Product{id=4, name='Wireless Charger', price=35.99}

2) Querying data with parameters

The following defines a method called findById() to find the product by id:

import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.sql.Statement;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class ProductDB {
     public static Product findById(int id){
        var sql = "SELECT id, name, price FROM products WHERE id=?";

        try (var conn =  DB.connect();
             var pstmt = conn.prepareStatement(sql)) {

            pstmt.setInt(1, id);
            var rs = pstmt.executeQuery();
            if (rs.next()) {
                return new Product(
                    rs.getInt("id"),
                    rs.getString("name"),
                    rs.getDouble("price")
                );
            }
        } catch (SQLException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return null;
    }
    // ...
}

How it works.

First, construct a SELECT that selects a product by id and use the question mark (?) as the placeholder:

var sql = "SELECT id, name, price FROM products WHERE id=?";

Second, open a connection to the database and create a PreparedStatement object:

try (var conn =  DB.connect();
     var pstmt = conn.prepareStatement(sql)) {
//...

Third, bind the id to the statement:

pstmt.setInt(1, id);

Fourth, execute the statement using the executeQuery() method of the PreparedStatement object:

var rs = pstmt.executeQuery();

Fifth, process the result set if the row with specified id exists and return the Product object:

if (rs.next()) {
    return new Product(
        rs.getInt("id"),
        rs.getString("name"),
        rs.getDouble("price")
    );
}

The following shows how to use the findById() in the main() method of the Main() class to retrieve the product with id 1 from the products table:

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        var p = ProductDB.findById(1);
        if(p != null){
            System.out.println(p);
        }
    }
}