The SQL statements that read data from a database query, return the data in a result set. The SELECT statement is the standard way to select rows from a database and view them in a result set. The java.sql.ResultSet interface represents the result set of a database query.

A ResultSet object maintains a cursor that points to the current row in the result set. The term “result set” refers to the row and column data contained in a ResultSet object.

The methods of the ResultSet interface can be broken down into three categories −

• Navigational methods − Used to move the cursor around.

• Get methods − Used to view the data in the columns of the current row being pointed by the cursor.

• Update methods − Used to update the data in the columns of the current row. The updates can then be updated in the underlying database as well.

The cursor is movable based on the properties of the ResultSet. These properties are designated when the corresponding Statement that generates the ResultSet is created.

JDBC provides the following connection methods to create statements with desired ResultSet −

• createStatement(int RSType, int RSConcurrency);

• prepareStatement(String SQL, int RSType, int RSConcurrency);

• prepareCall(String sql, int RSType, int RSConcurrency);

The first argument indicates the type of a ResultSet object and the second argument is one of two ResultSet constants for specifying whether a result set is read-only or updatable.

Type of ResultSet

The possible RSType are given below. If you do not specify any ResultSet type, you will automatically get one that is TYPE_FORWARD_ONLY.

Concurrency of ResultSet

The possible RSConcurrency are given below. If you do not specify any Concurrency type, you will automatically get one that is CONCUR_READ_ONLY.

All our examples written so far can be written as follows, which initializes a Statement object to create a forward-only, read only ResultSet object −

try {
   Statement stmt = conn.createStatement(ResultSet.TYPE_FORWARD_ONLY, ResultSet.CONCUR_READ_ONLY);
}
catch(Exception ex) {
   ....
}
finally {
   ....
}

Navigating a Result Set

There are several methods in the ResultSet interface that involve moving the cursor, including −

For a better understanding, let us study Navigate – Example Code.

Viewing a Result Set

The ResultSet interface contains dozens of methods for getting the data of the current row.

There is a get method for each of the possible data types, and each get method has two versions −

• One that takes in a column name.

• One that takes in a column index.

For example, if the column you are interested in viewing contains an int, you need to use one of the getInt() methods of ResultSet −

Similarly, there are get methods in the ResultSet interface for each of the eight Java primitive types, as well as common types such as java.lang.String, java.lang.Object, and java.net.URL.

There are also methods for getting SQL data types java.sql.Date, java.sql.Time, java.sql.TimeStamp, java.sql.Clob, and java.sql.Blob. Check the documentation for more information about using these SQL data types.

For a better understanding, let us study Viewing – Example Code.

Updating a Result Set

The ResultSet interface contains a collection of update methods for updating the data of a result set.

As with the get methods, there are two update methods for each data type −

• One that takes in a column name.

• One that takes in a column index.

For example, to update a String column of the current row of a result set, you would use one of the following updateString() methods −

There are update methods for the eight primitive data types, as well as String, Object, URL, and the SQL data types in the java.sql package.

Updating a row in the result set changes the columns of the current row in the ResultSet object, but not in the underlying database. To update your changes to the row in the database, you need to invoke one of the following methods.

For a better understanding, let us study the Updating – Example Code .