Java JDBC API

DuckDB's JDBC API implements the main parts of the standard Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) API, version 4.1. Describing JDBC is beyond the scope of this page, see the official documentation for details. Below we focus on the DuckDB-specific parts.

Refer to the externally hosted API Reference for more information about our extensions to the JDBC specification, or the below Arrow Methods.

Startup & Shutdown

In JDBC, database connections are created through the standard java.sql.DriverManager class. The driver should auto-register in the DriverManager, if that does not work for some reason, you can enforce registration using the following statement:

Class.forName("org.duckdb.DuckDBDriver");

To create a DuckDB connection, call DriverManager with the jdbc:duckdb: JDBC URL prefix, like so:

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;

Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:duckdb:");

To use DuckDB-specific features such as the Appender, cast the object to a DuckDBConnection:

import java.sql.DriverManager;
import org.duckdb.DuckDBConnection;

DuckDBConnection conn = (DuckDBConnection) DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:duckdb:");

When using the jdbc:duckdb: URL alone, an in-memory database is created. Note that for an in-memory database no data is persisted to disk (i.e., all data is lost when you exit the Java program). If you would like to access or create a persistent database, append its file name after the path. For example, if your database is stored in /tmp/my_database, use the JDBC URL jdbc:duckdb:/tmp/my_database to create a connection to it.

It is possible to open a DuckDB database file in read-only mode. This is for example useful if multiple Java processes want to read the same database file at the same time. To open an existing database file in read-only mode, set the connection property duckdb.read_only like so:

Properties readOnlyProperty = new Properties();
readOnlyProperty.setProperty("duckdb.read_only", "true");
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:duckdb:/tmp/my_database", readOnlyProperty);

Additional connections can be created using the DriverManager. A more efficient mechanism is to call the DuckDBConnection#duplicate() method:

Connection conn2 = ((DuckDBConnection) conn).duplicate();

Multiple connections are allowed, but mixing read-write and read-only connections is unsupported.

Configuring Connections

Configuration options can be provided to change different settings of the database system. Note that many of these settings can be changed later on using PRAGMA statements as well.

Properties connectionProperties = new Properties();
connectionProperties.setProperty("temp_directory", "/path/to/temp/dir/");
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:duckdb:/tmp/my_database", connectionProperties);

Querying

DuckDB supports the standard JDBC methods to send queries and retrieve result sets. First a Statement object has to be created from the Connection, this object can then be used to send queries using execute and executeQuery. execute() is meant for queries where no results are expected like CREATE TABLE or UPDATE etc. and executeQuery() is meant to be used for queries that produce results (e.g., SELECT). Below two examples. See also the JDBC Statement and ResultSet documentations.

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.sql.Statement;

Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:duckdb:");

// create a table
Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();
stmt.execute("CREATE TABLE items (item VARCHAR, value DECIMAL(10, 2), count INTEGER)");
// insert two items into the table
stmt.execute("INSERT INTO items VALUES ('jeans', 20.0, 1), ('hammer', 42.2, 2)");

try (ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM items")) {
    while (rs.next()) {
        System.out.println(rs.getString(1));
        System.out.println(rs.getInt(3));
    }
}
stmt.close();

jeans
1
hammer
2

DuckDB also supports prepared statements as per the JDBC API:

import java.sql.PreparedStatement;

try (PreparedStatement stmt = conn.prepareStatement("INSERT INTO items VALUES (?, ?, ?);")) {
    stmt.setString(1, "chainsaw");
    stmt.setDouble(2, 500.0);
    stmt.setInt(3, 42);
    stmt.execute();
    // more calls to execute() possible
}

Warning Do not use prepared statements to insert large amounts of data into DuckDB. See the data import documentation for better options.

Arrow Methods

Refer to the API Reference for type signatures

Arrow Export

The following demonstrates exporting an arrow stream and consuming it using the java arrow bindings

import org.apache.arrow.memory.RootAllocator;
import org.apache.arrow.vector.ipc.ArrowReader;
import org.duckdb.DuckDBResultSet;

try (var conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:duckdb:");
    var stmt = conn.prepareStatement("SELECT * FROM generate_series(2000)");
    var resultset = (DuckDBResultSet) stmt.executeQuery();
    var allocator = new RootAllocator()) {
    try (var reader = (ArrowReader) resultset.arrowExportStream(allocator, 256)) {
        while (reader.loadNextBatch()) {
            System.out.println(reader.getVectorSchemaRoot().getVector("generate_series"));
        }
    }
    stmt.close();
}

Arrow Import

The following demonstrates consuming an Arrow stream from the Java Arrow bindings.

import org.apache.arrow.memory.RootAllocator;
import org.apache.arrow.vector.ipc.ArrowReader;
import org.duckdb.DuckDBConnection;

// Arrow binding
try (var allocator = new RootAllocator();
     ArrowStreamReader reader = null; // should not be null of course
     var arrow_array_stream = ArrowArrayStream.allocateNew(allocator)) {
    Data.exportArrayStream(allocator, reader, arrow_array_stream);

    // DuckDB setup
    try (var conn = (DuckDBConnection) DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:duckdb:")) {
        conn.registerArrowStream("asdf", arrow_array_stream);

        // run a query
        try (var stmt = conn.createStatement();
             var rs = (DuckDBResultSet) stmt.executeQuery("SELECT count(*) FROM asdf")) {
            while (rs.next()) {
                System.out.println(rs.getInt(1));
            }
        }
    }
}

Streaming Results

Result streaming is opt-in in the JDBC driver – by setting the jdbc_stream_results config to true before running a query. The easiest way do that is to pass it in the Properties object.

Properties props = new Properties();
props.setProperty(DuckDBDriver.JDBC_STREAM_RESULTS, String.valueOf(true));

Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:duckdb:", props);

Appender

The Appender is available in the DuckDB JDBC driver via the org.duckdb.DuckDBAppender class. The constructor of the class requires the schema name and the table name it is applied to. The Appender is flushed when the close() method is called.

Example:

import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.Statement;
import org.duckdb.DuckDBConnection;

DuckDBConnection conn = (DuckDBConnection) DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:duckdb:");
try (var stmt = conn.createStatement()) {
    stmt.execute("CREATE TABLE tbl (x BIGINT, y FLOAT, s VARCHAR)"
);

// using try-with-resources to automatically close the appender at the end of the scope
try (var appender = conn.createAppender(DuckDBConnection.DEFAULT_SCHEMA, "tbl")) {
    appender.beginRow();
    appender.append(10);
    appender.append(3.2);
    appender.append("hello");
    appender.endRow();
    appender.beginRow();
    appender.append(20);
    appender.append(-8.1);
    appender.append("world");
    appender.endRow();
}

Batch Writer

The DuckDB JDBC driver offers batch write functionality. The batch writer supports prepared statements to mitigate the overhead of query parsing.

The preferred method for bulk inserts is to use the Appender due to its higher performance. However, when using the Appender is not possbile, the batch writer is available as alternative.

Batch Writer with Prepared Statements

import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import org.duckdb.DuckDBConnection;

DuckDBConnection conn = (DuckDBConnection) DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:duckdb:");
PreparedStatement stmt = conn.prepareStatement("INSERT INTO test (x, y, z) VALUES (?, ?, ?);");

stmt.setObject(1, 1);
stmt.setObject(2, 2);
stmt.setObject(3, 3);
stmt.addBatch();

stmt.setObject(1, 4);
stmt.setObject(2, 5);
stmt.setObject(3, 6);
stmt.addBatch();

stmt.executeBatch();
stmt.close();

Batch Writer with Vanilla Statements

The batch writer also supports vanilla SQL statements:

import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.Statement;
import org.duckdb.DuckDBConnection;

DuckDBConnection conn = (DuckDBConnection) DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:duckdb:");
Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();

stmt.execute("CREATE TABLE test (x INTEGER, y INTEGER, z INTEGER)");

stmt.addBatch("INSERT INTO test (x, y, z) VALUES (1, 2, 3);");
stmt.addBatch("INSERT INTO test (x, y, z) VALUES (4, 5, 6);");

stmt.executeBatch();
stmt.close();

Troubleshooting

Driver Class Not Found

If the Java application is unable to find the DuckDB, it may throw the following error:

Exception in thread "main" java.sql.SQLException: No suitable driver found for jdbc:duckdb:
    at java.sql/java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(DriverManager.java:706)
    at java.sql/java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(DriverManager.java:252)
    ...

And when trying to load the class manually, it may result in this error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.duckdb.DuckDBDriver
    at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:641)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoaders.java:188)
    at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:520)
    at java.base/java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
    at java.base/java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:375)
    ...

These errors stem from the DuckDB Maven/Gradle dependency not being detected. To ensure that it is detected, force refresh the Maven configuration in your IDE.

Installation

Basic API Usage