Exercise 18-1. Before you begin using JDBC, you must first have a database server
and a JDBC driver for it, and you must know how to administer the
server in order to do such things as create new databases. If you are
not already an experienced database programmer, learning to do all
this is more difficult than actually programming with JDBC. For this
first exercise, therefore, obtain and install a database server if
you don't already have one. Obtain and install a
JDBC driver for it. Read the documentation for both the server and
the driver. Learn the basics of the SQL language, if you
don't already know it, and make a note of what SQL
subset or SQL extensions are supported by your server and JDBC
driver.
Exercise 18-2. Example 18-1 is a general-purpose SQL interpreter
program that displays database query results in a rudimentary
text-based table format. Modify the program so that it outputs query
results using HTML table syntax, resulting in output suitable for
display in a web browser. Test your program by issuing queries
against some existing database.
Exercise 18-3. Write a program to create a database table of all files and
directories stored on your computer (or at least all files and
directories beneath a specified directory). Each entry in the
database table should include a filename, a size, a modification
date, and a boolean value that indicates whether it is a file or a
directory. Run this program to generate a database of files. Write a
second program that allows a user to make useful queries against this
database, such as "list all files larger than 1
megabyte that are older than 1 month," or
"list all files with the extension
.java that were modified
today." Optionally, design and create a GUI that
allows a user to issue this sort of complicated query without knowing
SQL.
