Details the commit and rollback of transactions in the Java JDBC API

If the JDBC connection is in auto-commit mode, which is the default, then each SQL statement is submitted to the database when it is completed.

This may be true for simple applications, but there are three reasons you might want to turn off auto-commit and manage your own transactions:

To improve performance To maintain the integrity of the business process Using distributed transactions

To control transactions and when changes are applied to the database. It treats a single SQL statement or set of SQL statements as a logical unit, and if any statement fails, the entire transaction fails.

To enable, rather than the JDBC driver using manual transaction support in auto-commit mode by default, use the setAutoCommit() method of the Connection object. If you pass a Boolean value of false to setAutoCommit(), turn off auto-commit. You can pass a Boolean value of true to reopen it.

For example, if you have a conn Connection object, the following code turns off auto-commit:

conn.setAutoCommit(false);

Commit and rollback
Once the change is complete, commit the change, and then call the commit (on the connection object) method, as shown below:

conn.commit( );

Otherwise rollback the update done to the database using the named connection conn, using the following code:

conn.rollback( );

The following example demonstrates how to use a commit and rollback object:

try{
  //Assume a valid connection object conn
  conn.setAutoCommit(false);
  Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();
  
  String SQL = "INSERT INTO Employees " +
        "VALUES (106, 20, 'Rita', 'Tez')";
  stmt.executeUpdate(SQL); 
  //Submit a malformed SQL statement that breaks
  String SQL = "INSERTED IN Employees " +
        "VALUES (107, 22, 'Sita', 'Singh')";
  stmt.executeUpdate(SQL);
  // If there is no error.
  conn.commit();
}catch(SQLException se){
  // If there is any error.
  conn.rollback();
}

In this case, no INSERT statement above will succeed and everything will be rolled back.

Transaction commit and rollback examples
The following is an example of using the transaction commit and rollback descriptions.

Do this sample code based on the environment and database installation you learned in the previous section.

Copy the following example of jdbcexample.java, compile and run as follows:

//STEP 1. Import required packages
import java.sql.*;

public class JDBCExample {
  // JDBC driver name and database URL
  static final String JDBC_DRIVER = "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"; 
  static final String DB_URL = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/EMP";

  // Database credentials
  static final String USER = "username";
  static final String PASS = "password";
  
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  Connection conn = null;
  Statement stmt = null;
  try{
   //STEP 2: Register JDBC driver
   Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");

   //STEP 3: Open a connection
   System.out.println("Connecting to database...");
   conn = DriverManager.getConnection(DB_URL,USER,PASS);

   //STEP 4: Set auto commit as false.
   conn.setAutoCommit(false);

   //STEP 5: Execute a query to create statment with
   // required arguments for RS example.
   System.out.println("Creating statement...");
   stmt = conn.createStatement(
              ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_INSENSITIVE,
              ResultSet.CONCUR_UPDATABLE);
   
   //STEP 6: INSERT a row into Employees table
   System.out.println("Inserting one row....");
   String SQL = "INSERT INTO Employees " +
          "VALUES (106, 20, 'Rita', 'Tez')";
   stmt.executeUpdate(SQL); 

   //STEP 7: INSERT one more row into Employees table
   SQL = "INSERT INTO Employees " +
          "VALUES (107, 22, 'Sita', 'Singh')";
   stmt.executeUpdate(SQL);

   //STEP 8: Commit data here.
   System.out.println("Commiting data here....");
   conn.commit();
  
  //STEP 9: Now list all the available records.
   String sql = "SELECT id, first, last, age FROM Employees";
   ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(sql);
   System.out.println("List result set for reference....");
   printRs(rs);

   //STEP 10: Clean-up environment
   rs.close();
   stmt.close();
   conn.close();
  }catch(SQLException se){
   //Handle errors for JDBC
   se.printStackTrace();
   // If there is an error then rollback the changes.
   System.out.println("Rolling back data here....");
  try{
  if(conn!=null)
      conn.rollback();
   }catch(SQLException se2){
     se2.printStackTrace();
   }//end try

  }catch(Exception e){
   //Handle errors for Class.forName
   e.printStackTrace();
  }finally{
   //finally block used to close resources
   try{
     if(stmt!=null)
      stmt.close();
   }catch(SQLException se2){
   }// nothing we can do
   try{
     if(conn!=null)
      conn.close();
   }catch(SQLException se){
     se.printStackTrace();
   }//end finally try
  }//end try
  System.out.println("Goodbye!");
}//end main

  public static void printRs(ResultSet rs) throws SQLException{
   //Ensure we start with first row
   rs.beforeFirst();
   while(rs.next()){
     //Retrieve by column name
     int id = rs.getInt("id");
     int age = rs.getInt("age");
     String first = rs.getString("first");
     String last = rs.getString("last");

     //Display values
     System.out.print("ID: " + id);
     System.out.print(", Age: " + age);
     System.out.print(", First: " + first);
     System.out.println(", Last: " + last);
   }
   System.out.println();
  }//end printRs()
}//end JDBCExample

Now let's compile the above example:

C:>javac JDBCExample.java

When running JDBCExample, it produces the following results:

C:>java JDBCExample

Connecting to database...
Creating statement...
Inserting one row....
Commiting data here....
List result set for reference....
ID: 100, Age: 18, First: Zara, Last: Ali
ID: 101, Age: 25, First: Mahnaz, Last: Fatma
ID: 102, Age: 30, First: Zaid, Last: Khan
ID: 103, Age: 28, First: Sumit, Last: Mittal
ID: 106, Age: 20, First: Rita, Last: Tez
ID: 107, Age: 22, First: Sita, Last: Singh
Goodbye!