Java Date - Insert into database

Question

I need to figure out a way to insert a record with a java.util.Date field into a database and i'm stuck.

Does anyone know how i can do this? Right now i have something like.

        java.util.Date myDate = new java.util.Date("01/01/2009");

        sb.append("INSERT INTO USERS");
        sb.append("(USER_ID, FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, SEX, DATE) ");
        sb.append("VALUES ( ");
        sb.append("  '" + userId + "'");
        sb.append(", '" + myUser.GetFirstname() + "' ");
        sb.append(", '" + myUser.GetLastname() + "' ");
        sb.append(", '" + myUser.GetSex() + "' ");
        sb.append(", '" + myDate  + "'");
        sb.append(")");

        Util.executeUpdate(sb.toString());

But when i run something like this i get the error: The syntax of the string representation of a datetime value is incorrect.

Heres what the sql statement looks like:

INSERT INTO USERS (USER_ID
    , FIRST_NAME
    , LAST_NAME
    , SEX
    , CRDATE) 
VALUES (   
    'user'
    , 'FirstTest' 
    , 'LastTest' 
    , 'M'
    , 'Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 CST 2009')

Thanks

Answer 1

Before I answer your question, I'd like to mention that you should probably look into using some sort of ORM solution (e.g., Hibernate), wrapped behind a data access tier. What you are doing appear to be very anti-OO. I admittedly do not know what the rest of your code looks like, but generally, if you start seeing yourself using a lot of Utility classes, you're probably taking too structural of an approach.

To answer your question, as others have mentioned, look into java.sql.PreparedStatement, and use java.sql.Date or java.sql.Timestamp. Something like (to use your original code as much as possible, you probably want to change it even more):

java.util.Date myDate = new java.util.Date("10/10/2009");
java.sql.Date sqlDate = new java.sql.Date(myDate.getTime());

sb.append("INSERT INTO USERS");
sb.append("(USER_ID, FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, SEX, DATE) ");
sb.append("VALUES ( ");
sb.append("?, ?, ?, ?, ?");
sb.append(")");

Connection conn = ...;// you'll have to get this connection somehow
PreparedStatement stmt = conn.prepareStatement(sb.toString());
stmt.setString(1, userId);
stmt.setString(2, myUser.GetFirstName());
stmt.setString(3, myUser.GetLastName());
stmt.setString(4, myUser.GetSex());
stmt.setDate(5, sqlDate);

stmt.executeUpdate(); // optionally check the return value of this call

One additional benefit of this approach is that it automatically escapes your strings for you (e.g., if were to insert someone with the last name "O'Brien", you'd have problems with your original implementation).

Answer 2

PreparedStatement

You should definitely use a PreparedStatement. (Tutorial)

That way you can invoke:

pstmt.setDate( 1, aDate );

The JDBC driver will do date-time handling appropriate for your particular database.

Also, a PreparedStatement stops any SQL injection hacking attempts – very important! (humor)

It should look like this:

SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat( "MM/dd/yyyy" );  // United States style of format.
java.util.Date myDate = format.parse( "10/10/2009" );  // Notice the ".util." of package name.

PreparedStatement pstmt = connection.prepareStatement(
"INSERT INTO USERS ( USER_ID, FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, SEX, DATE ) " +
" values (?, ?, ?, ?, ? )");

pstmt.setString( 1, userId );
pstmt.setString( 3, myUser.getLastName() ); 
pstmt.setString( 2, myUser.getFirstName() ); // please use "getFir…" instead of "GetFir…", per Java conventions.
pstmt.setString( 4, myUser.getSex() );
java.sql.Date sqlDate = new java.sql.Date( myDate.getTime() ); // Notice the ".sql." (not "util") in package name.
pstmt.setDate( 5, sqlDate ); 

And that's it, the JDBC driver will create the right SQL syntax for you.

Retrieving

When retrieving a Date object, you can use a SimpleDateFormat to create a formatted string representation of the date-time value.

Here is one quick example line, but search StackOverflow for many more.

String s = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy").format( aDate );