Java 7 Automatic Resource Management JDBC (try-with-resources statement)

Question

How to integrate the common JDBC idiom of creating/receiving a connection, querying the database and possibly processing the results with Java 7's automatic resource management, the try-with-resources statement? (Tutorial)

Before Java 7, the usual pattern was something like this:

Connection con = null;
PreparedStatement prep = null;

try{
    con = getConnection();
    prep = prep.prepareStatement("Update ...");
    ...
    con.commit();
}
catch (SQLException e){
    con.rollback(); 
    throw e;
}
finally{
    if (prep != null)
        prep.close();
    if (con != null)
        con.close();
}

With Java 7 you can go for:

try(Connection con = getConnection(); PreparedStatement prep = con.prepareConnection("Update ..."){

   ...
   con.commit();
}

This will close the Connection and the PreparedStatement, but what about the rollback? I cannot add a catch clause containing the rollback, because the connection is only available within the try block.

Do you still define the connection outside of the try block? What is the best practice here, especially if connection pooling is used?

Answer 1

try(Connection con = getConnection()) {
   try (PreparedStatement prep = con.prepareConnection("Update ...")) {
       //prep.doSomething();
       //...
       //etc
       con.commit();
   } catch (SQLException e) {
       //any other actions necessary on failure
       con.rollback();
       //consider a re-throw, throwing a wrapping exception, etc
   }
}

According to the oracle documentation, you can combine a try-with-resources block with a regular try block. IMO, the above example captures the correct logic, which is:

• Attempt to close the PreparedStatement if nothing goes wrong
• If something goes wrong in the inner block, (no matter what is is) roll back the current transaction
• Attempt to close the connection no matter what
• If something goes wrong closing the connection, you can't rollback the transaction (as that's a method on the connection, which is now in indeterminate state), so don't try

In java 6 and earlier, I would do this with a triply nested set of try blocks (outer try-finally, middle try-catch, inner try-finally). ARM syntax does make this terser.