Programming Tutorials

Creating Database Tables Using ANT

By: Sri Ganesh  

First, you can use a properties file to feed ANT, which has a simple sql target. Create a simple properties file, such as the one below:

 # Database properties are in derby.properties
 db.delimiter=;
 db.root=${javaee.home}/derby
 db.driver=org.apache.derby.jdbc.ClientDriver
 db.datasource=org.apache.derby.jdbc.ClientDataSource
 db.host=localhost
 db.port=1527
 db.sid=sun-appserv-samples
 db.url=jdbc:derby://${db.host}:${db.port}/${db.sid};create=true;
 db.user=APP
 db.pwd=APP 
 

Next, create a build.xml file that includes targets for compiling the Java code as well as a target similar to the following:

 <target name="create-db_common" depends="init,start-db,delete-db" 
               description="Create database tables and populate database.">
 -
    <sql driver="${db.driver}" url="${db.url}" userid="${db.user}" 
         password="${db.password}" classpathref="db.classpath" 
                 delimiter="${db.delimiter}" autocommit="false" onerror="abort">
 <transaction src="
          {javaee.tutorial.home}/examples/common/sql/${db.vendor}/tutorial.sql"/>
 </sql>
 </target>

The tutorial.sql file can contain the commands to create the tables and, possibly, populate the tables if need be, such as the example below:

 create table COFFEES(cof_name varchar32, price int, sup_id int,
 price float, sales int, total int);

The ';' matches the db.delimiter property.

NetBeans contains everything you need, including the Java DB and ANT. You can Download NetBeans from here.