What Steps Are Involved When Connecting to a Database in Java?

1. Load the database driver: First, load the database driver using the Class.forName() method. For example, for MySQL, you can use Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver").

2. Establish a connection: Use the DriverManager.getConnection() method to establish a connection to the database. Provide the database URL, username, and password. For example: Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/database_name", "username", "password");

3. Create a Statement object: Create a Statement object through the connection to execute SQL statements, such as Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();

4. Execute SQL statements: Use the Statement object to execute SQL statements, which can be queries or update commands. For example, for queries, use ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM table_name");, and for updates, use int count = stmt.executeUpdate("UPDATE table_name SET column_name = value WHERE condition");

5. Process results: For query operations, process the returned ResultSet object to read data. For update operations, handle the number of affected rows or other results.

6. Close the connection: After completing the operation, close the ResultSet, Statement, and Connection objects to release database resources. This is typically placed within a finally block to ensure execution regardless of exceptions. For example:

java
if (rs != null) rs.close();
if (stmt != null) stmt.close();
if (conn != null) conn.close();