1 Introduction and Roadmap

This section describes the contents and organization of this guide—Programming JDBC for Oracle WebLogic Server.

Document Scope and Audience
Guide to this Document
Related Documentation
JDBC Samples and Tutorials
New and Changed Features in This Release

Document Scope and Audience

This document is a resource for software developers and system administrators who develop and support applications that use the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) API. It also contains information that is useful for business analysts and system architects who are evaluating WebLogic Server. The topics in this document are relevant during the evaluation, design, development, pre-production, and production phases of a software project.

It is assumed that the reader is familiar with Java EE and EJB concepts. This document emphasizes the value-added features provided by WebLogic Server EJBs and key information about how to use WebLogic Server features and facilities to get an EJB application up and running.

Guide to this Document

This chapter, Chapter 1, "Introduction and Roadmap," introduces the organization of this guide.
Chapter 2, "Using WebLogic JDBC in an Application," explains how to use a JDBC connection in your application.
Chapter 3, "Performance Tuning Your JDBC Application," describes how to design JDBC connection usage in your applications for the best performance.
Chapter 4, "Using WebLogic Wrapper Drivers," describes how to use some alternative drivers for getting a JDBC connection from a data source.
Chapter 5, "Using API Extensions in JDBC Drivers," describes special programming considerations for third-party drivers in your applications.
Chapter 6, "Using RowSets with WebLogic Server," describes how to use rowsets in your applications.
Chapter 7, "Troubleshooting JDBC," describes some common JDBC problems and solutions.

JDBC Samples and Tutorials

In addition to this document, Oracle provides a variety of JDBC code samples that show JDBC configuration and API use, and provide practical instructions on how to perform key JDBC development tasks.

Avitek Medical Records Application (MedRec)

MedRec is an end-to-end sample Java EE application shipped with WebLogic Server that simulates an independent, centralized medical record management system. The MedRec application provides a framework for patients, doctors, and administrators to manage patient data using a variety of different clients.

MedRec demonstrates WebLogic Server and Java EE features, and highlights Oracle-recommended best practices. MedRec is included in the WebLogic Server distribution, and can be accessed from the Start menu on Windows machines. For Linux and other platforms, you can start MedRec from the WL_HOME\samples\domains\medrec directory, where WL_HOME is the top-level installation directory for WebLogic Platform.

JDBC Examples in the WebLogic Server Distribution

WebLogic Server optionally installs API code examples in the WL_HOME\samples\domains\medrec directory, where WL_HOME is the top-level directory of your WebLogic Server installation. You can start the examples server, and obtain information about the samples and how to run them from the WebLogic Server Start menu.

New and Changed Features in This Release

This release includes the following new and changed features:

getVendorConnectionSafe
"Change in Unwrap Implementation"

For a comprehensive listing of the new WebLogic Server features introduced in this release, see What's New in Oracle WebLogic Server.

getVendorConnectionSafe

This release provides getVendorConnectionSafe to access a physical connection. Similar to getVendorConnection, this mechanism returns the underlying physical connection (the vendor connection) from a pooled database connection (a logical connection). However, when the connection is closed, it is returned to the pool, independent of the setting of Remove Infected Connections Enabled. For some applications, getVendorConnectionSafe may enhance performance by eliminating the excessive creation of connections. See Getting a Physical Connection from a Data Source.

Change in Unwrap Implementation

The unwrap implementation has been changed in WebLogic Server 10.3.4.0 (this is implemented for CachedRowSet, CallableStatement, Connection, DatabaseMetaData, DataSource, FilteredRowSet, JdbcRowSet, JoinRowSet, ParameterMetaData, PreparedStatement, ResultSet, ResultSetMetaData, RowSet, RowSetMetaData, Statement, SyncResolver, WebRowSet). The JDBC 4.0 specification specifies that this implementation can only be called with an interface; it is invalid to call it with a base class. In past releases, this restriction has not been enforced. In WebLogic Server 10.3.4.0, this restriction is enforced. To limit the impact on existing applications using Oracle data types, this restriction is not enforced for classes whose name starts with oracle.sql.