Can you please recommend me some DB for learning JDBC?

[Mike Savvy]

Hi there!
I'm learning about JDBC for one week and I would like to test some queries on my PC in Eclipse.
But I have not accomplished to get connection to DB from Java code, all the time I had different Exceptions.
First I tried Derby because of recommendation in OCP book from Boyarsky, but it has not worked, also the book say it is in JDK but it is not.
Then I have installed MySQL the installation was successful, but I think I have not accomplished to communicate with it from Eclipse because of jar file. I had choosed it but the programm still dont liked it.

So maybe there are other DB's which I can easy install and try some stuff? Just for learning.

Thank you!

[Tim Holloway]

When you say "test DB connections in Eclipse", that can mean one of 2 things.

Eclipse has an optional database plugin that allows you to use Eclipse to make connections (via JDBC) to SQL database servers and run SQL and DDL commands and queries.

However, since Eclipse is also an application development environment (IDE), it is used to create JDBC applications. Since Java applications can run stand-alone, they don't depend on Eclipse for help and in this case you'd be using the Java debugger to run the app using a debugging (Run) profile.

The essential difference in terms of JDBC is that for the Eclipse database plugin, you have to tell the plugin where to find the JDBC driver jar(s) that you want it to use, then use the plugin GUI to define JDBC connections that you'd issue your SQL commands through.

In contrast, when testing/running a stand-alone JDBC application you would have to include the JDBC driver jar's location as part of the classpath you set up under the Run/debug menu dialog.

Depending on what database you are using, what OS you are using, and how you install things, the location of the database JDBC driver JAR could be located anywhere. For me, I'm using the Fedora Linux OS, and its standard software package installer for MySQL JDBC puts the jar in the /usr/share/java directory these days. The location of the driver really doesn't matter, though, as long as you point the application you are using at it.

If you get error messages, however, please tell us what the text of those messages is. We can help you much better that way.

[David Gillette]

Hi Mike,

Apache Derby and MySQL should be your best choices. Both have a lot of tutorials and documentation available. I would recommend try to troubleshoot your installation, make sure everything is set up correctly, correct driver, permissions, network, server is running, etc., and follow any number of tutorials (video and/or text) freely available. If you just want to learn SQL syntax, codecademy has a decent free SQL course.

https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-sql

or try these:

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql-getting-started/en/

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/installing.html

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/jdbc/basics/index.html

https://www.codejava.net/java-se/jdbc/connect-to-mysql-database-via-jdbc

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEAQNNR8IlB4R7NfqBY1frapYo97L6fOQ

Hope that helps.

[Mike Savvy]

Thank you for answers Tim Holloway and David Gillette.
Tim, I posted already some exceptions I became here: https://coderanch.com/t/738266/certification/set-Database-code-OCP-study
David, thank you for links, I will use each of them. Codeacademy course I did in 2019 but I can say I have not learned a lot there, it is pretty little. And I need deeper knowledge of database, sql and jdbc.
I hope the tutorial from youtube will help, because I used already some tutorials for mysql from internet (2020 version) but it had not worked with eclipse (also not in terminal).

[Dave Tolls]

If you hit problems then post the issues here.
There's not much point leaping between DB trying to find one that works if there's something fundamentally incorrect about the set up.