Connect to SQLite via JDBC

SQLite is a simple, small, fast, reliable, server-less, zero-configuration and no-installation SQL database library which is running in-process with the client application. Although there is no official JDBC driver library from www.sqlite.org, there is one provided by www.xerial.org – an XML Database Management System project.

1.    Download SQLite JDBC driver

You can download the latest version of JDBC driver for SQLite here. The download is categorized by versions, so browse a directory for a specific version you want: 3.5.9, 3.6.16, 3.7.2, etc. As of this writing, the latest version is 3.7.2 which corresponds to the jar file sqlite-jdbc-3.7.2.jar.Beside Java class files, the jar file includes SQLite binaries for Windows, Linux and Mac (for both 32-bit and 64-bit).Place the sqlite-jdbc-VERSION.jar into your classpath.

2.    SQLite JDBC database connection URL

The SQLite JDBC driver can load a SQLite database from file system or creates one in memory.Here is the syntax of database connection URL for file system database:

jdbc:sqlite:database_file_path

Where database_file_path can be either relative or absolute path. For example:

jdbc:sqlite:product.db

jdbc:sqlite:C:/work/product.db

And here is the syntax of database connection URL for memory database:

jdbc:sqlite::memory:

jdbc:sqlite:

3.    Loading SQLite JDBC driver

With this SQLite JDBC library, you have to load the driver as follows:

Class.forName("org.sqlite.JDBC");

or

DriverManager.registerDriver(new org.sqlite.JDBC());

4.    Making SQLite JDBC connection

The following example program creates a connection to a SQLite database file product.db which is in the same directory as the program, prints some database metadata information, and closes the connection:

package net.codejava.jdbc;

import java.sql.Connection;

import java.sql.DatabaseMetaData;

import java.sql.DriverManager;

import java.sql.SQLException;

/**

 * This program demonstrates making JDBC connection to a SQLite database.

 * @author www.codejava.net

 *

 */

public class JdbcSQLiteConnection {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        try {

            Class.forName("org.sqlite.JDBC");

            String dbURL = "jdbc:sqlite:product.db";

            Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(dbURL);

            if (conn != null) {

                System.out.println("Connected to the database");

                DatabaseMetaData dm = (DatabaseMetaData) conn.getMetaData();

                System.out.println("Driver name: " + dm.getDriverName());

                System.out.println("Driver version: " + dm.getDriverVersion());

                System.out.println("Product name: " + dm.getDatabaseProductName());

                System.out.println("Product version: " + dm.getDatabaseProductVersion());

                conn.close();

            }

        } catch (ClassNotFoundException ex) {

            ex.printStackTrace();

        } catch (SQLException ex) {

            ex.printStackTrace();

        }

    }

}