Java DatabaseMetaData interface

The DatabaseMetaData interface is used to get information about the database and its features. It helps developers understand details like database name, version, driver, and tables.

In this chapter, you will learn about the DatabaseMetaData interface, its methods, and how to get database information using Java.

What is DatabaseMetaData Interface?

The DatabaseMetaData interface provides methods to get metadata of a database. This includes details like database product name, version, driver name, and information about tables and views.

It is useful when you want to explore or analyze the structure and properties of a database.

Importing / Using DatabaseMetaData Interface

To use DatabaseMetaData in a program, we need to import it from the java.sql package, which contains all the required classes for database connectivity. In most cases, we import the entire package (java.sql.*) to easily access all JDBC components.

Here is the import statement to use DatabaseMetaData Interface:

Or we can use:

Methods of DatabaseMetaData Interface

The following table lists important methods of the DatabaseMetaData interface.

Getting the Object of DatabaseMetaData

The getMetaData() method of the Connection interface is used to get the DatabaseMetaData object.

Here is the syntax to get the object of DatabaseMetaData:

Example of DatabaseMetaData Interface

The following code snippet demonstrates how to get database metadata.

Output:Driver Name: Oracle JDBC Driver
       Driver Version: 10.2.0.1.0XE
       Database Product Name: Oracle
       Database Product Version: Oracle Database 10g Express Edition
                                 Release 10.2.0.1.0 -Production

Explanation:

This example shows how to use DatabaseMetaData to get details about the database, such as driver name, version, username, and database information.

More Examples

Example 1: Print Total Number of Tables

This example demonstrates how to retrieve and display all table names from the database using the DatabaseMetaData interface.

Example 2: Print Total Number of Views

This example shows how to retrieve and display all view names from the database using the DatabaseMetaData interface.