JDBC 4.0-only features

Attention: Derby Version 10.2 includes JDBC 4.0 functionality based on a pre-release of Java SE 6. When you use Derby with a Java SE 6 virtual machine, Derby will use its JDBC 3.0 drivers, just as with 1.4 and 1.5 virtual machines. JDBC 4.0 is available only to developers who download Java SE 6 and use it to build in support for JDBC 4.0. The Release Notes explain how to build the JDBC 4.0 functionality with Derby Version 10.2. A follow-on Derby release will include JDBC 4.0 functionality based on the final JDBC 4.0 specification once Java SE 6 becomes generally available.

JDBC 4.0 adds some functionality to the core API. This section documents the features supported by Derby.

Note: These features are present only in a JDK 1.6 or higher environment.

These features are:

DataSources. To support the JDBC 4.0 ease of development, Derby introduces new implementations of javax.sql.DataSource.
Autoloading of JDBC drivers. In earlier versions of JDBC, applications had to manually register drivers before requesting Connections. With JDBC 4.0, applications no longer need to issue a Class.forName() on the driver name; instead, the DriverManager will find an appropriate JDBC driver when the application requests a Connection.
SQLExceptions. JDBC 4.0 introduces refined subclasses of SQLException. See Refined subclasses of SQLException.
Wrappers. JDBC 4.0 introduces the concept of wrapped JDBC objects. This is a formal mechanism by which application servers can look for vendor-specific extensions inside standard JDBC objects like Connections, Statements, and ResultSets. For Derby, this is a vacuous exercise because Derby does not expose any of these extensions.
Statement events. With JDBC 4.0, Connection pools can listen for Statement closing and Statement error events. New methods were added to javax.sql.PooledConnection: addStatementEventListener and removeStatementEventListener.
Streaming APIs. JDBC 4.0 adds new overloads of the streaming methods in CallableStatement, PreparedStatement, and ResultSet. These are the setXXX and updateXXX methods which take java.io.InputStream and java.io.Reader arguments. The new overloads allow you to omit the length arguments or to specify long lengths.
New methods. New methods were added to the following interfaces: java.sql.Connection, java.sql.DatabaseMetaData, java.sql.Statement.