Inserting CLOB Values with setCharacterStream() Method

JDBC for SQL Server - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟SQL Server CLOB (Character Large Object) - TEXT

∟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:

/* SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.java
 * Copyright (c) HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
 */
import java.io.*;
import java.sql.*;
public class SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream {
  public static void main(String [] args) {
    Connection con = null;
    try {
      com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDataSource ds
        = new com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDataSource();
      ds.setServerName("localhost");
//      ds.setPortNumber(60782);
      ds.setInstanceName("SQLEXPRESS");
      ds.setDatabaseName("AdventureWorks2019");
      ds.setUser("Herong");
      ds.setPassword("T0pSecret");
      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 (Subject, Body) VALUES (?,?)");
      ps.setString(1, subject);
      Reader bodyIn =
        new FileReader("SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.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("SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.java");
//    ps.setCharacterStream(2, bodyIn, fileIn.length());

// Test 3 - This works with JDBC 3.0 drivers
      File fileIn = new File("SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.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) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
  }
}

Since JDBC Driver 4.2 is a JDBC 4.2 driver, all 3 tests are working:

herong> java -cp .;mssql-jdbc-9.4.1.jre16.jar \
  SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream

The inserted record:
   Subject = Test of setCharacterStream() methods
   Body = /* SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.java
 * Copyright (c) HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
 */
import java.io.*;
import java.sql.*;
public class SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream {
  public static void main(String [] args) {
    Connection con = nul

If you are using a JDBC 3.0 driver, setCharacterStream(int parameterIndex, Reader reader) will not work. Here is what I got with the "Test 1" section open in my program with sqljdbc.jar and JDK 1.6. Remember that sqljdbc.jar is a JDBC 3.0 driver.

herong> java -cp .;sqljdbc.jar SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.AbstractMethodError: com
  .microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerPreparedStatement
  .setCharacterStream(ILjava/io/Reader;)V
  at SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.main(SqlServerClobSet...java:34)

If you are using a JDBC 3.0 driver, "Test 2" also failed for the same reason - fileIn.length() returns "long" and that setCharacterStream(int, Reader, long) is JDBC 4.0 method: Here is what I got with the "Test 2" section open in my program with sqljdbc.jar and JDK 1.6. Remember that sqljdbc.jar is a JDBC 3.0 driver.

herong> java -cp .;sqljdbc.jar SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.AbstractMethodError: com
  .microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerPreparedStatement
  .setCharacterStream(ILjava/io/Reader;J)V
  at SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.main(SqlServerClobSet...java:38)