Connection Pooling with C3P0 ComboPooledDataSource

JDBC Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟Connection Pooling with C3P0 ComboPooledDataSource

This section provides a tutorial example that shows you how to use the C3P0 ComboPooledDataSource class to manage the connection pool with JavaBean style properties.

The easiest way to use C3P0 package for connection pooling is to use the com.mchange.v2.c3p0.ComboPooledDataSource class. It implements the standard JDBC javax.sql.DataSource interface to manage the connection pool with JavaBean style properties.

The ComboPooledDataSource class uses set*() and get*() methods to configure and manage the connection pool. Here is my sample Java program, C3p0ComboPooledDataSourceExample.java against my local Derby server.

/* C3p0ComboPooledDataSourceExample.java
 * Copyright (c) HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
 */
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DatabaseMetaData;
import javax.sql.DataSource;
import com.mchange.v2.c3p0.ComboPooledDataSource;

public class C3p0ComboPooledDataSourceExample {
  static java.io.PrintStream out = System.out;

  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    String url = "jdbc:derby://localhost/TestDB";

    // Get a DataSource with pooled connections
    DataSource ds = getDataSource(url);

    // Get a pooled connection
    Connection con = ds.getConnection();
    checkDataSource(ds);

    // Verify the pooled connection
    DatabaseMetaData meta = con.getMetaData();
    out.println();
    out.println("Database Connection Info: ");
    out.println("   Server name: "+meta.getDatabaseProductName());
    out.println("   Server version: "+meta.getDatabaseProductVersion());
    out.println("   Driver name: "+ meta.getDriverName());
    out.println("   Driver version: "+ meta.getDriverVersion());
    out.println("   JDBC major version: "+ meta.getJDBCMajorVersion());
    out.println("   JDBC minor version: "+ meta.getJDBCMinorVersion());

    // Close the pooled connection
    con.close();

    // Wait for 3 minutes to check the server side
    out.println();
    out.println("Go and count connections on the database server ...");
    Thread.sleep(3*60*1000);

    // Close the DataSource
    closeDataSource(ds);
  }

  public static DataSource getDataSource(String url) throws Exception {
    ComboPooledDataSource cpds = new ComboPooledDataSource();
    cpds.setJdbcUrl(url);
    cpds.setInitialPoolSize(10);
    DataSource ds = (DataSource) cpds;
    return ds;
  }

  public static void closeDataSource(DataSource ds) throws Exception {
    ComboPooledDataSource cpds = (ComboPooledDataSource) ds;
    cpds.close();
  }

  public static void checkDataSource(DataSource ds) throws Exception {
    ComboPooledDataSource cpds = (ComboPooledDataSource) ds;
    out.println();
    out.println("C3P0 ComboPooledDataSource Info: ");
    out.println("   Total Connections: "+cpds.getNumConnections());
    out.println("   Busy Connections: "+cpds.getNumBusyConnections());
    out.println("   Idle Connections: "+cpds.getNumIdleConnections());
    out.println("   Connection URL: "+cpds.getJdbcUrl());
    out.println("   User Name: "+cpds.getUser());
    out.println("   Password: "+cpds.getPassword());
  }
}

To run this test program, I need both Derby JDBC and C3P0 JAR files. See other tutorials to download them.

c3p0-0.9.5.5.jar - To provide JDBC connection pooling.
derbyclient.jar - To provide JDBC driver for Derby server.

Let's run it:

herong> java -cp .:\
  c3p0-0.9.5.5.jar:\
  derbyclient.jar \
  C3p0ComboPooledDataSourceExample.java

8:37:33 PM com.mchange.v2.log.MLog
INFO: MLog clients using java 1.4+ standard logging.
8:37:38 PM com.mchange.v2.c3p0.C3P0Registry
INFO: Initializing c3p0-0.9.5.5 [built 11-December-2019 22:07:46 ...]
8:37:38 PM com.mchange.v2.c3p0.impl.AbstractPoolBackedDataSource
INFO: Initializing c3p0 pool... com.mchange.v2.c3p0.ComboPooledDataSource
  [ acquireIncrement -> 3,
    acquireRetryAttempts -> 30,
    ...
  ]

C3P0 ComboPooledDataSource Info: 
   Total Connections: 3
   Busy Connections: 1
   Idle Connections: 2
   Connection URL: jdbc:derby://localhost/TestDB
   User Name: null
   Password: null

Database Connection Info: 
   Server name: Apache Derby
   Server version: 10.17.1.0 - (1913217)
   Driver name: Apache Derby Network Client JDBC Driver
   Driver version: 10.15.1.3 - (1853019)
   JDBC major version: 4
   JDBC minor version: 2

Go and count connections on the database server ...

Unfortunately, I could not find a way to verify how many connections has been created by this test program on the Derby server. But it seems to be working correctly.

So, what we can see from this tutorial:

C3P0 ComboPooledDataSource class nicely hides the connection pool in a standard JDBC DataSource object. Once created, it can be used in your application to perform normal JDBC operations.
You can easily change the connection URL to test C3P0 for connection pooling with MySQL, Oracle or SQL Server.