Booting Apache Derby ("JavaDB") with your Java App's Startup

If you're embedding the Derby RDBMS with your java desktop application and want it to start when you start your app, you need to make the following call somewhere in your code (i.e. in main() or an init() method):

        // Start the Derby Database
        try {
            Class.forName("org.apache.derby.jdbc.EmbeddedDriver")
                .newInstance();
        } catch (ClassNotFoundException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        } catch (InstantiationException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IllegalAccessException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }
        
        // Set the connection to the database
        Connection conn = null;
        try {
            conn = DriverManager
            .getConnection("jdbc:derby:sample;create=true");
        } catch (SQLException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }

It's important to notice (as I didn't to begin with) that you need the local version of the URL as you are doing this using the embedded driver. If you use the URL version you'll get a "java.sql.SQLException: No suitable driver" error.


You'll also notice that this creates the database with the name provided in a directory with the name provided, (e.g. "sample"). This directory will be in the same place as the main class you are running.

One final thing, this is dead easy to use with EJB 3.0 too. All you need to do is set up your persistence manager to run outside a container and as soon as you have started your embedded database, you can connect to it with something like TopLink. Beautiful....