What is the best way to listen for changes in JTable cell values and update database accordingly?

Question

I'm building and app with multiple JTables and I need to detect when cell value change occurs so I can update it in the database. I tried TableModelListener and overriding tableChanged, but it fires only when I click away (click on another row) after I have edited a cell.

Any other way to do this?

Answer 1

I'm agreeing with @mKorbel - unless all your input is checkboxes and dropdowns, you're going to want to wait until the cell editing is stopped (you don't want to commit to the database every time a letter is typed in a textbox).

If the problem is that it's not committing after focus has gone to another component, add a FocusListener that stops editing the table when focus is lost on the table:

Example:

final JTable table = new JTable();
table.addFocusListener(new FocusAdapter() {
    @Override
    public void focusLost(FocusEvent e) {
        TableCellEditor tce = table.getCellEditor();
        if(tce != null)
            tce.stopCellEditing();
    }
});

Answer 2

You can implement the CellEditorListener interface, as shown in this example. Note that JTable itself is a CellEditorListener.

It may also be convenient to terminate the edit when focus is lost, as shown here:

table.putClientProperty("terminateEditOnFocusLost", true);

More Swing client properties may be found here.