JDBC Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Notes
Dr. Herong Yang, Version 2.11

Inserting CLOB Values with setCharacterStream() Method

This section describes how to insert CLOB values with the PreparedStatement.setCharacterStream() method.

If you want to insert the entire content of a text file into a CLOB column, you should create a Reader object from this file, and use the PreparedStatement.setCharacterStream() method to pass the text file content to the CLOB column through the Reader object. There are 3 versions of the setCharacterStream() method, two of them were added as part of JDBC 4.0 (Java 1.6). Your JDBC driver may not support them:

  • setCharacterStream(int parameterIndex, Reader reader) - The data will be read from the Reader stream as needed until end-of-file is reached. This was added in JDBC 4.0 (Java 1.6).
  • setCharacterStream(int parameterIndex, Reader reader, int length) - The data will be read from the Reader stream as needed for "length" characters.
  • setCharacterStream(int parameterIndex, Reader reader, long length) - The data will be read from the Reader stream as needed for "length" characters. This was added in JDBC 4.0 (Java 1.6).

To test those setCharacterStream() methods, wrote the following program:

/**
 * OracleClobSetCharacterStream.java
 * Copyright (c) 2007 by Dr. Herong Yang. All rights reserved.
 */
import java.io.*;
import java.sql.*;
public class OracleClobSetCharacterStream {
  public static void main(String [] args) {
    Connection con = null;
    try {
      oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleDataSource ds 
        = new oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleDataSource();
      ds.setDriverType("thin");
      ds.setServerName("localhost");
      ds.setPortNumber(1521);
      ds.setDatabaseName("XE");
      ds.setUser("Herong");
      ds.setPassword("TopSecret");
      con = ds.getConnection();

// Deleting the record for re-testing
      String subject = "Test of setCharacterStream() methods";
      Statement sta = con.createStatement(); 
      sta.executeUpdate("DELETE FROM Article WHERE Subject = '"
        +subject+"'");

// Inserting CLOB value with a PreparedStatement
      PreparedStatement ps = con.prepareStatement(
        "INSERT INTO Article (ID, Subject, Body) VALUES (3,?,?)");
      ps.setString(1, subject);
      Reader bodyIn = 
        new FileReader("OracleClobSetCharacterStream.java");

// Test 1 - This will not work with JDBC 3.0 drivers
//    ps.setCharacterStream(2, bodyIn);

// Test 2 - This will not work with JDBC 3.0 drivers
//   File fileIn = new File("OracleClobSetCharacterStream.java");
//    ps.setCharacterStream(2, bodyIn, fileIn.length());

// Test 3 - This works with JDBC 3.0 drivers
      File fileIn = new File("OracleClobSetCharacterStream.java");
      ps.setCharacterStream(2, bodyIn, (int) fileIn.length());

      int count = ps.executeUpdate();
      bodyIn.close();
      ps.close();

// Retrieving CLOB value with getString()
      sta = con.createStatement(); 
      ResultSet res = sta.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM Article" 
        +" WHERE Subject = '"+subject+"'");
      res.next();
      System.out.println("The inserted record: "); 
      System.out.println("   Subject = "+res.getString("Subject"));
      System.out.println("   Body = "
        +res.getString("Body").substring(0,256)); 
      res.close();

      sta.close();
      con.close();
    } catch (Exception e) {
      System.err.println("Exception: "+e.getMessage());
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
  }
}

As I mentioned above setCharacterStream(int parameterIndex, Reader reader) will not work with JDBC 3.0 drivers. Here is what I got with the "Test 1" section open in my program. Remember that Oracle JDBC driver 1.0 is a JDBC 3.0 driver.

C:\>java -cp .;\local\lib\ojdbc14.jar OracleClobSetCharacterStream

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.AbstractMethodError: oracle
  .jdbc.driver.T4CPreparedStatement.setCharacterStream(
    ILjava/io/Reader;)V
  at OracleClobSetCharacterStream.main(
    OracleClobSetCharacterStream.java:35)

"Test 2" also failed for the same reason - fileIn.length() returns "long" and that setCharacterStream(int, Reader, long) is JDBC 4.0 method:

C:\>java -cp .;\local\lib\ojdbc14.jar OracleClobSetCharacterStream

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.AbstractMethodError: oracle
  .jdbc.driver.T4CPreparedStatement.setCharacterStream(
    ILjava/io/Reader;J)V
  at OracleClobSetCharacterStream.main(
    OracleClobSetCharacterStream.java:39)

Of course, "Test 3" worked nicely.

C:\>java -cp .;\local\lib\ojdbc14.jar OracleClobSetCharacterStream

The inserted record:
   Subject = Test of setCharacterStream() methods
   Body = /**
 * OracleClobSetCharacterStream.java
 * Copyright (c) 2007 by Dr. Herong Yang. All rights reserved.
 */
import java.io.*;
import java.sql.*;
public class OracleClobSetCharacterStream {
  public static void main(String [] args) {
    Connection con = nu

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) Introduction

 Downloading and Installing JDK - Java SE

 Installing and Running Java DB - Derby

 Derby (Java DB) JDBC Driver

 Derby (Java DB) JDBC DataSource Objects

 Java DB (Derby) - DML Statements

 Java DB (Derby) - ResultSet Objects of Queries

 Java DB (Derby) - PreparedStatement

 MySQL Installation on Windows

 MySQL JDBC Driver (MySQL Connector/J)

 MySQL - PreparedStatement

 MySQL - Reference Implementation of JdbcRowSet

 MySQL - JBDC CallableStatement

 MySQL CLOB (Character Large Object) - TEXT

 MySQL BLOB (Binary Large Object) - BLOB

 Oracle Express Edition Installation on Windows

 Oracle JDBC Drivers

 Oracle - Reference Implementation of JdbcRowSet

 Oracle - PreparedStatement

 Oracle - JBDC CallableStatement

Oracle CLOB (Character Large Object) - TEXT

 Overview of CLOB (Character Large Object)

 Create Tables with CLOB Columns

 Inserting CLOB Values with SQL INSERT Statements

 Inserting CLOB Values with setString() Method

Inserting CLOB Values with setCharacterStream() Method

 Closing InputStream Too Early on setCharacterStream()

 Retrieving CLOB Values with getString() Method

 Retrieving CLOB Values with getCharacterStream() Method

 Retrieving CLOB Values with getClob() Method

 Inserting CLOB Values with setClob() Method

 Oracle BLOB (Binary Large Object) - BLOB

 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition

 Microsoft JDBC Driver for SQL Server - sqljdbc.jar

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - Query Statements and Result Sets

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - DatabaseMetaData Object

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - DDL Statements

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - DML Statements

 SQL Server - PreparedStatement

 SQL Server CLOB (Character Large Object) - TEXT

 SQL Server BLOB (Binary Large Object) - BLOB

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - Flat Text Files

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - MS Access

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - MS SQL Server

 Summary of JDBC Drivers and Database Servers

 Additional Tutorial Notes to Be Added

 References

 PDF Printing Version

Dr. Herong Yang, updated in 2007
Inserting CLOB Values with setCharacterStream() Method