I want to build an SQL string to do database manipulation (updates, deletes, inserts, selects, that sort of thing) - instead of the awful string concat method using millions of "+"'s and quotes which is unreadable at best - there must be a better way.
I did think of using MessageFormat - but its supposed to be used for user messages, although I think it would do a reasonable job - but I guess there should be something more aligned to SQL type operations in the java sql libraries.
Would Groovy be any good?
Why do you want to generate all the sql by hand? Have you looked at an ORM like Hibernate Depending on your project it will probably do at least 95% of what you need, do it in a cleaner way then raw SQL, and if you need to get the last bit of performance you can create the SQL queries that need to be hand tuned.
I would have a look at Spring JDBC. I use it whenever I need to execute SQLs programatically. Example:
int countOfActorsNamedJoe
= jdbcTemplate.queryForInt("select count(0) from t_actors where first_name = ?", new Object[]{"Joe"});
It's really great for any kind of sql execution, especially querying; it will help you map resultsets to objects, without adding the complexity of a complete ORM.
For arbitrary SQL, use jOOQ. jOOQ currently supports SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, TRUNCATE, and MERGE. You can create SQL like this:
String sql1 = DSL.using(SQLDialect.MYSQL)
.select(A, B, C)
.from(MY_TABLE)
.where(A.equal(5))
.and(B.greaterThan(8))
.getSQL();
String sql2 = DSL.using(SQLDialect.MYSQL)
.insertInto(MY_TABLE)
.values(A, 1)
.values(B, 2)
.getSQL();
String sql3 = DSL.using(SQLDialect.MYSQL)
.update(MY_TABLE)
.set(A, 1)
.set(B, 2)
.where(C.greaterThan(5))
.getSQL();
Instead of obtaining the SQL string, you could also just execute it, using jOOQ. See
(Disclaimer: I work for the company behind jOOQ)
Why do you want to generate all the sql by hand? Have you looked at an ORM like Hibernate Depending on your project it will probably do at least 95% of what you need, do it in a cleaner way then raw SQL, and if you need to get the last bit of performance you can create the SQL queries that need to be hand tuned.
I have been working on a Java servlet application that needs to construct very dynamic SQL statements for adhoc reporting purposes. The basic function of the app is to feed a bunch of named HTTP request parameters into a pre-coded query, and generate a nicely formatted table of output. I used Spring MVC and the dependency injection framework to store all of my SQL queries in XML files and load them into the reporting application, along with the table formatting information. Eventually, the reporting requirements became more complicated than the capabilities of the existing parameter mapping frameworks and I had to write my own. It was an interesting exercise in development and produced a framework for parameter mapping much more robust than anything else I could find.
The new parameter mappings looked as such:
select app.name as "App",
${optional(" app.owner as "Owner", "):showOwner}
sv.name as "Server", sum(act.trans_ct) as "Trans"
from activity_records act, servers sv, applications app
where act.server_id = sv.id
and act.app_id = app.id
and sv.id = ${integer(0,50):serverId}
and app.id in ${integerList(50):appId}
group by app.name, ${optional(" app.owner, "):showOwner} sv.name
order by app.name, sv.name
The beauty of the resulting framework was that it could process HTTP request parameters directly into the query with proper type checking and limit checking. No extra mappings required for input validation. In the example query above, the parameter named serverId would be checked to make sure it could cast to an integer and was in the range of 0-50. The parameter appId would be processed as an array of integers, with a length limit of 50. If the field showOwner is present and set to "true", the bits of SQL in the quotes will be added to the generated query for the optional field mappings. field Several more parameter type mappings are available including optional segments of SQL with further parameter mappings. It allows for as complex of a query mapping as the developer can come up with. It even has controls in the report configuration to determine whether a given query will have the final mappings via a PreparedStatement or simply ran as a pre-built query.
For the sample Http request values:
showOwner: true
serverId: 20
appId: 1,2,3,5,7,11,13
It would produce the following SQL:
select app.name as "App",
app.owner as "Owner",
sv.name as "Server", sum(act.trans_ct) as "Trans"
from activity_records act, servers sv, applications app
where act.server_id = sv.id
and act.app_id = app.id
and sv.id = 20
and app.id in (1,2,3,5,7,11,13)
group by app.name, app.owner, sv.name
order by app.name, sv.name
I really think that Spring or Hibernate or one of those frameworks should offer a more robust mapping mechanism that verifies types, allows for complex data types like arrays and other such features. I wrote my engine for only my purposes, it isn't quite read for general release. It only works with Oracle queries at the moment and all of the code belongs to a big corporation. Someday I may take my ideas and build a new open source framework, but I'm hoping one of the existing big players will take up the challenge.
I second the recommendations for using an ORM like Hibernate. However, there are certainly situations where that doesn't work, so I'll take this opportunity to tout some stuff that i've helped to write: SqlBuilder is a java library for dynamically building sql statements using the "builder" style. it's fairly powerful and fairly flexible.
One technology you should consider is SQLJ - a way to embed SQL statements directly in Java. As a simple example, you might have the following in a file called TestQueries.sqlj:
public class TestQueries
{
public String getUsername(int id)
{
String username;
#sql
{
select username into :username
from users
where pkey = :id
};
return username;
}
}
There is an additional precompile step which takes your .sqlj files and translates them into pure Java - in short, it looks for the special blocks delimited with
#sql
{
...
}
and turns them into JDBC calls. There are several key benefits to using SQLJ:
There are implementations of the translator around for most of the major database vendors, so you should be able to find everything you need easily.
How do you get string concatenation, aside from long SQL strings in PreparedStatements (that you could easily provide in a text file and load as a resource anyway) that you break over several lines?
You aren't creating SQL strings directly are you? That's the biggest no-no in programming. Please use PreparedStatements, and supply the data as parameters. It reduces the chance of SQL Injection vastly.
For arbitrary SQL, use jOOQ. jOOQ currently supports SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, TRUNCATE, and MERGE. You can create SQL like this:
String sql1 = DSL.using(SQLDialect.MYSQL)
.select(A, B, C)
.from(MY_TABLE)
.where(A.equal(5))
.and(B.greaterThan(8))
.getSQL();
String sql2 = DSL.using(SQLDialect.MYSQL)
.insertInto(MY_TABLE)
.values(A, 1)
.values(B, 2)
.getSQL();
String sql3 = DSL.using(SQLDialect.MYSQL)
.update(MY_TABLE)
.set(A, 1)
.set(B, 2)
.where(C.greaterThan(5))
.getSQL();
Instead of obtaining the SQL string, you could also just execute it, using jOOQ. See
(Disclaimer: I work for the company behind jOOQ)
I tend to use Spring's Named JDBC Parameters so I can write a standard string like "select * from blah where colX=':someValue'"; I think that's pretty readable.
An alternative would be to supply the string in a separate .sql file and read the contents in using a utility method.
Oh, also worth having a look at Squill: https://squill.dev.java.net/docs/tutorial.html
You can read it from an XML file. Its easy to maintain and work with. There are standard STaX, DOM, SAX parsers available out there to make it few lines of code in java.
You can have some semantic information with attributes on the tag to help do more with the SQL. This can be the method name or query type or anything that helps you code less.
You can put the xml outside the jar and easily maintain it. Same benefits as a properties file.
XML is extensible and easily convertible to other formats.
I second the recommendations for using an ORM like Hibernate. However, there are certainly situations where that doesn't work, so I'll take this opportunity to tout some stuff that i've helped to write: SqlBuilder is a java library for dynamically building sql statements using the "builder" style. it's fairly powerful and fairly flexible.
Why do you want to generate all the sql by hand? Have you looked at an ORM like Hibernate Depending on your project it will probably do at least 95% of what you need, do it in a cleaner way then raw SQL, and if you need to get the last bit of performance you can create the SQL queries that need to be hand tuned.
How do you get string concatenation, aside from long SQL strings in PreparedStatements (that you could easily provide in a text file and load as a resource anyway) that you break over several lines?
You aren't creating SQL strings directly are you? That's the biggest no-no in programming. Please use PreparedStatements, and supply the data as parameters. It reduces the chance of SQL Injection vastly.
One technology you should consider is SQLJ - a way to embed SQL statements directly in Java. As a simple example, you might have the following in a file called TestQueries.sqlj:
public class TestQueries
{
public String getUsername(int id)
{
String username;
#sql
{
select username into :username
from users
where pkey = :id
};
return username;
}
}
There is an additional precompile step which takes your .sqlj files and translates them into pure Java - in short, it looks for the special blocks delimited with
#sql
{
...
}
and turns them into JDBC calls. There are several key benefits to using SQLJ:
There are implementations of the translator around for most of the major database vendors, so you should be able to find everything you need easily.
I have been working on a Java servlet application that needs to construct very dynamic SQL statements for adhoc reporting purposes. The basic function of the app is to feed a bunch of named HTTP request parameters into a pre-coded query, and generate a nicely formatted table of output. I used Spring MVC and the dependency injection framework to store all of my SQL queries in XML files and load them into the reporting application, along with the table formatting information. Eventually, the reporting requirements became more complicated than the capabilities of the existing parameter mapping frameworks and I had to write my own. It was an interesting exercise in development and produced a framework for parameter mapping much more robust than anything else I could find.
The new parameter mappings looked as such:
select app.name as "App",
${optional(" app.owner as "Owner", "):showOwner}
sv.name as "Server", sum(act.trans_ct) as "Trans"
from activity_records act, servers sv, applications app
where act.server_id = sv.id
and act.app_id = app.id
and sv.id = ${integer(0,50):serverId}
and app.id in ${integerList(50):appId}
group by app.name, ${optional(" app.owner, "):showOwner} sv.name
order by app.name, sv.name
The beauty of the resulting framework was that it could process HTTP request parameters directly into the query with proper type checking and limit checking. No extra mappings required for input validation. In the example query above, the parameter named serverId would be checked to make sure it could cast to an integer and was in the range of 0-50. The parameter appId would be processed as an array of integers, with a length limit of 50. If the field showOwner is present and set to "true", the bits of SQL in the quotes will be added to the generated query for the optional field mappings. field Several more parameter type mappings are available including optional segments of SQL with further parameter mappings. It allows for as complex of a query mapping as the developer can come up with. It even has controls in the report configuration to determine whether a given query will have the final mappings via a PreparedStatement or simply ran as a pre-built query.
For the sample Http request values:
showOwner: true
serverId: 20
appId: 1,2,3,5,7,11,13
It would produce the following SQL:
select app.name as "App",
app.owner as "Owner",
sv.name as "Server", sum(act.trans_ct) as "Trans"
from activity_records act, servers sv, applications app
where act.server_id = sv.id
and act.app_id = app.id
and sv.id = 20
and app.id in (1,2,3,5,7,11,13)
group by app.name, app.owner, sv.name
order by app.name, sv.name
I really think that Spring or Hibernate or one of those frameworks should offer a more robust mapping mechanism that verifies types, allows for complex data types like arrays and other such features. I wrote my engine for only my purposes, it isn't quite read for general release. It only works with Oracle queries at the moment and all of the code belongs to a big corporation. Someday I may take my ideas and build a new open source framework, but I'm hoping one of the existing big players will take up the challenge.
I tend to use Spring's Named JDBC Parameters so I can write a standard string like "select * from blah where colX=':someValue'"; I think that's pretty readable.
An alternative would be to supply the string in a separate .sql file and read the contents in using a utility method.
Oh, also worth having a look at Squill: https://squill.dev.java.net/docs/tutorial.html
You can also have a look at MyBatis (www.mybatis.org) . It helps you write SQL statements outside your java code and maps the sql results into your java objects among other things.
One technology you should consider is SQLJ - a way to embed SQL statements directly in Java. As a simple example, you might have the following in a file called TestQueries.sqlj:
public class TestQueries
{
public String getUsername(int id)
{
String username;
#sql
{
select username into :username
from users
where pkey = :id
};
return username;
}
}
There is an additional precompile step which takes your .sqlj files and translates them into pure Java - in short, it looks for the special blocks delimited with
#sql
{
...
}
and turns them into JDBC calls. There are several key benefits to using SQLJ:
There are implementations of the translator around for most of the major database vendors, so you should be able to find everything you need easily.
I would have a look at Spring JDBC. I use it whenever I need to execute SQLs programatically. Example:
int countOfActorsNamedJoe
= jdbcTemplate.queryForInt("select count(0) from t_actors where first_name = ?", new Object[]{"Joe"});
It's really great for any kind of sql execution, especially querying; it will help you map resultsets to objects, without adding the complexity of a complete ORM.
I tend to use Spring's Named JDBC Parameters so I can write a standard string like "select * from blah where colX=':someValue'"; I think that's pretty readable.
An alternative would be to supply the string in a separate .sql file and read the contents in using a utility method.
Oh, also worth having a look at Squill: https://squill.dev.java.net/docs/tutorial.html
Google provides a library called the Room Persitence Library which provides a very clean way of writing SQL for Android Apps, basically an abstraction layer over underlying SQLite Database. Bellow is short code snippet from the official website:
@Dao
public interface UserDao {
@Query("SELECT * FROM user")
List<User> getAll();
@Query("SELECT * FROM user WHERE uid IN (:userIds)")
List<User> loadAllByIds(int[] userIds);
@Query("SELECT * FROM user WHERE first_name LIKE :first AND "
+ "last_name LIKE :last LIMIT 1")
User findByName(String first, String last);
@Insert
void insertAll(User... users);
@Delete
void delete(User user);
}
There are more examples and better documentation in the official docs for the library.
There is also one called MentaBean which is a Java ORM. It has nice features and seems to be pretty simple way of writing SQL.
I second the recommendations for using an ORM like Hibernate. However, there are certainly situations where that doesn't work, so I'll take this opportunity to tout some stuff that i've helped to write: SqlBuilder is a java library for dynamically building sql statements using the "builder" style. it's fairly powerful and fairly flexible.
You can also have a look at MyBatis (www.mybatis.org) . It helps you write SQL statements outside your java code and maps the sql results into your java objects among other things.
I have been working on a Java servlet application that needs to construct very dynamic SQL statements for adhoc reporting purposes. The basic function of the app is to feed a bunch of named HTTP request parameters into a pre-coded query, and generate a nicely formatted table of output. I used Spring MVC and the dependency injection framework to store all of my SQL queries in XML files and load them into the reporting application, along with the table formatting information. Eventually, the reporting requirements became more complicated than the capabilities of the existing parameter mapping frameworks and I had to write my own. It was an interesting exercise in development and produced a framework for parameter mapping much more robust than anything else I could find.
The new parameter mappings looked as such:
select app.name as "App",
${optional(" app.owner as "Owner", "):showOwner}
sv.name as "Server", sum(act.trans_ct) as "Trans"
from activity_records act, servers sv, applications app
where act.server_id = sv.id
and act.app_id = app.id
and sv.id = ${integer(0,50):serverId}
and app.id in ${integerList(50):appId}
group by app.name, ${optional(" app.owner, "):showOwner} sv.name
order by app.name, sv.name
The beauty of the resulting framework was that it could process HTTP request parameters directly into the query with proper type checking and limit checking. No extra mappings required for input validation. In the example query above, the parameter named serverId would be checked to make sure it could cast to an integer and was in the range of 0-50. The parameter appId would be processed as an array of integers, with a length limit of 50. If the field showOwner is present and set to "true", the bits of SQL in the quotes will be added to the generated query for the optional field mappings. field Several more parameter type mappings are available including optional segments of SQL with further parameter mappings. It allows for as complex of a query mapping as the developer can come up with. It even has controls in the report configuration to determine whether a given query will have the final mappings via a PreparedStatement or simply ran as a pre-built query.
For the sample Http request values:
showOwner: true
serverId: 20
appId: 1,2,3,5,7,11,13
It would produce the following SQL:
select app.name as "App",
app.owner as "Owner",
sv.name as "Server", sum(act.trans_ct) as "Trans"
from activity_records act, servers sv, applications app
where act.server_id = sv.id
and act.app_id = app.id
and sv.id = 20
and app.id in (1,2,3,5,7,11,13)
group by app.name, app.owner, sv.name
order by app.name, sv.name
I really think that Spring or Hibernate or one of those frameworks should offer a more robust mapping mechanism that verifies types, allows for complex data types like arrays and other such features. I wrote my engine for only my purposes, it isn't quite read for general release. It only works with Oracle queries at the moment and all of the code belongs to a big corporation. Someday I may take my ideas and build a new open source framework, but I'm hoping one of the existing big players will take up the challenge.
I second the recommendations for using an ORM like Hibernate. However, there are certainly situations where that doesn't work, so I'll take this opportunity to tout some stuff that i've helped to write: SqlBuilder is a java library for dynamically building sql statements using the "builder" style. it's fairly powerful and fairly flexible.
If you put the SQL strings in a properties file and then read that in you can keep the SQL strings in a plain text file.
That doesn't solve the SQL type issues, but at least it makes copying&pasting from TOAD or sqlplus much easier.
If you put the SQL strings in a properties file and then read that in you can keep the SQL strings in a plain text file.
That doesn't solve the SQL type issues, but at least it makes copying&pasting from TOAD or sqlplus much easier.
Google provides a library called the Room Persitence Library which provides a very clean way of writing SQL for Android Apps, basically an abstraction layer over underlying SQLite Database. Bellow is short code snippet from the official website:
@Dao
public interface UserDao {
@Query("SELECT * FROM user")
List<User> getAll();
@Query("SELECT * FROM user WHERE uid IN (:userIds)")
List<User> loadAllByIds(int[] userIds);
@Query("SELECT * FROM user WHERE first_name LIKE :first AND "
+ "last_name LIKE :last LIMIT 1")
User findByName(String first, String last);
@Insert
void insertAll(User... users);
@Delete
void delete(User user);
}
There are more examples and better documentation in the official docs for the library.
There is also one called MentaBean which is a Java ORM. It has nice features and seems to be pretty simple way of writing SQL.
How do you get string concatenation, aside from long SQL strings in PreparedStatements (that you could easily provide in a text file and load as a resource anyway) that you break over several lines?
You aren't creating SQL strings directly are you? That's the biggest no-no in programming. Please use PreparedStatements, and supply the data as parameters. It reduces the chance of SQL Injection vastly.
If you put the SQL strings in a properties file and then read that in you can keep the SQL strings in a plain text file.
That doesn't solve the SQL type issues, but at least it makes copying&pasting from TOAD or sqlplus much easier.
Why do you want to generate all the sql by hand? Have you looked at an ORM like Hibernate Depending on your project it will probably do at least 95% of what you need, do it in a cleaner way then raw SQL, and if you need to get the last bit of performance you can create the SQL queries that need to be hand tuned.
I would have a look at Spring JDBC. I use it whenever I need to execute SQLs programatically. Example:
int countOfActorsNamedJoe
= jdbcTemplate.queryForInt("select count(0) from t_actors where first_name = ?", new Object[]{"Joe"});
It's really great for any kind of sql execution, especially querying; it will help you map resultsets to objects, without adding the complexity of a complete ORM.
I tend to use Spring's Named JDBC Parameters so I can write a standard string like "select * from blah where colX=':someValue'"; I think that's pretty readable.
An alternative would be to supply the string in a separate .sql file and read the contents in using a utility method.
Oh, also worth having a look at Squill: https://squill.dev.java.net/docs/tutorial.html
How do you get string concatenation, aside from long SQL strings in PreparedStatements (that you could easily provide in a text file and load as a resource anyway) that you break over several lines?
You aren't creating SQL strings directly are you? That's the biggest no-no in programming. Please use PreparedStatements, and supply the data as parameters. It reduces the chance of SQL Injection vastly.
You can read it from an XML file. Its easy to maintain and work with. There are standard STaX, DOM, SAX parsers available out there to make it few lines of code in java.
You can have some semantic information with attributes on the tag to help do more with the SQL. This can be the method name or query type or anything that helps you code less.
You can put the xml outside the jar and easily maintain it. Same benefits as a properties file.
XML is extensible and easily convertible to other formats.
One technology you should consider is SQLJ - a way to embed SQL statements directly in Java. As a simple example, you might have the following in a file called TestQueries.sqlj:
public class TestQueries
{
public String getUsername(int id)
{
String username;
#sql
{
select username into :username
from users
where pkey = :id
};
return username;
}
}
There is an additional precompile step which takes your .sqlj files and translates them into pure Java - in short, it looks for the special blocks delimited with
#sql
{
...
}
and turns them into JDBC calls. There are several key benefits to using SQLJ:
There are implementations of the translator around for most of the major database vendors, so you should be able to find everything you need easily.
I have been working on a Java servlet application that needs to construct very dynamic SQL statements for adhoc reporting purposes. The basic function of the app is to feed a bunch of named HTTP request parameters into a pre-coded query, and generate a nicely formatted table of output. I used Spring MVC and the dependency injection framework to store all of my SQL queries in XML files and load them into the reporting application, along with the table formatting information. Eventually, the reporting requirements became more complicated than the capabilities of the existing parameter mapping frameworks and I had to write my own. It was an interesting exercise in development and produced a framework for parameter mapping much more robust than anything else I could find.
The new parameter mappings looked as such:
select app.name as "App",
${optional(" app.owner as "Owner", "):showOwner}
sv.name as "Server", sum(act.trans_ct) as "Trans"
from activity_records act, servers sv, applications app
where act.server_id = sv.id
and act.app_id = app.id
and sv.id = ${integer(0,50):serverId}
and app.id in ${integerList(50):appId}
group by app.name, ${optional(" app.owner, "):showOwner} sv.name
order by app.name, sv.name
The beauty of the resulting framework was that it could process HTTP request parameters directly into the query with proper type checking and limit checking. No extra mappings required for input validation. In the example query above, the parameter named serverId would be checked to make sure it could cast to an integer and was in the range of 0-50. The parameter appId would be processed as an array of integers, with a length limit of 50. If the field showOwner is present and set to "true", the bits of SQL in the quotes will be added to the generated query for the optional field mappings. field Several more parameter type mappings are available including optional segments of SQL with further parameter mappings. It allows for as complex of a query mapping as the developer can come up with. It even has controls in the report configuration to determine whether a given query will have the final mappings via a PreparedStatement or simply ran as a pre-built query.
For the sample Http request values:
showOwner: true
serverId: 20
appId: 1,2,3,5,7,11,13
It would produce the following SQL:
select app.name as "App",
app.owner as "Owner",
sv.name as "Server", sum(act.trans_ct) as "Trans"
from activity_records act, servers sv, applications app
where act.server_id = sv.id
and act.app_id = app.id
and sv.id = 20
and app.id in (1,2,3,5,7,11,13)
group by app.name, app.owner, sv.name
order by app.name, sv.name
I really think that Spring or Hibernate or one of those frameworks should offer a more robust mapping mechanism that verifies types, allows for complex data types like arrays and other such features. I wrote my engine for only my purposes, it isn't quite read for general release. It only works with Oracle queries at the moment and all of the code belongs to a big corporation. Someday I may take my ideas and build a new open source framework, but I'm hoping one of the existing big players will take up the challenge.
Source: Stackoverflow.com