Is there a way to persist HSQLDB data?

Question

We have all of our unit tests written so that they create and populate tables in HSQL. I want the developers who use this to be able to write queries against this HSQL DB ( 1) by writing queries they can better understand the data model and the ones not as familiar with SQL can play with the data before writing the runtime statements and 2) since they don't have access to the test DB/security reasons). Is there a way to persist the results of the test data so that it may be examine and analyzed with a an sql client?

Right now I am jury rigging it by switching the data source to a different DB (like DB2/mysql, then connecting to that DB on my machine so I can play with persistant data), however it would be easier for me if HSQL supports persisting this than to explain how to do this to every new developer.

Just to be clear, I need an SQL client to interact with persistent data, so debugging and checking memory won't be clean. This has more to do with initial development and not debugging/maintenance/testing.

Answer 1

If you use an HSQLDB Server instance for your tests, the data will survive the test run.

If the server uses a jdbc:hsqldb:mem:aname (all-in-memory) url for its database, then the data will be available while the server is running. Alternatively the server can use a jdbc:hsqldb:file:filepath url and the data is persisted to files.

The latest HSQLDB docs explain the different options. Most of the observations also apply to older (1.8.x) versions. However, the latest version 2.0.1 supports starting a server and creating databases dynamically upon the first connection, which can simplify testing a lot.

http://hsqldb.org/doc/2.0/guide/deployment-chapt.html#N13C3D