1 Introduction and Roadmap

This chapter describes the contents and organization of this guide—Developing JDBC Applications for Oracle WebLogic Server.

Document Scope and Audience

This document is a resource for software developers and system administrators who develop and support applications that use the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) API. It also contains information that is useful for business analysts and system architects who are evaluating WebLogic Server. The topics in this document are relevant during the evaluation, design, development, pre-production, and production phases of a software project.

It is assumed that the reader is familiar with Java EE and JDBC concepts. This document emphasizes the value-added features provided by WebLogic Server JDBC and key information about how to use WebLogic Server features and facilities to get an JDBC application up and running.

Guide to this Document

Related Documentation

This document contains JDBC-specific programming information.

For comprehensive guidelines for developing, deploying, and monitoring WebLogic Server applications, see the following documents:

JDBC Samples and Tutorials

In addition to this document, Oracle provides a variety of JDBC code samples that show JDBC configuration and API use, and provide practical instructions on how to perform key JDBC development tasks.

Avitek Medical Records Application (MedRec)

MedRec is an end-to-end sample Java EE application shipped with WebLogic Server that simulates an independent, centralized medical record management system. The MedRec application provides a framework for patients, doctors, and administrators to manage patient data using a variety of different clients.

MedRec demonstrates WebLogic Server and Java EE features, and highlights Oracle-recommended best practices. MedRec is optionally installed with the WebLogic Server installation. You can start MedRec from the ORACLE_HOME\user_projects\domains\medrec directory, where ORACLE_HOME is the directory you specified as the Oracle Home when you installed Oracle WebLogic Server. For more information, see "Sample Applications and Code Examples" in Understanding Oracle WebLogic Server.

JDBC Examples in the WebLogic Server Distribution

WebLogic Server optionally installs API code examples in the EXAMPLES_HOME\wl_server\examples\src\examples directory, where EXAMPLES_HOME represents the directory in which the WebLogic Server code examples are configured. For more information, see "Sample Applications and Code Examples" in Understanding Oracle WebLogic Server.

New and Changed Features in This Release

This release includes the following new and changed features:

For a comprehensive listing of the new WebLogic Server features introduced in this release, see What's New in Oracle WebLogic Server.

JDBC 4.1 Support for JDK 7

This release of WebLogic Server supports the JDBC 4.1 Specification when the environment is using JDK 7 and the JDBC driver is JDBC 4.1 compliant. To use new JDBC 4.1 methods with the Oracle Thin driver, you must use the ojdbc7.jar. See "JDBC™ 4.1 Specification" at https://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/jcp/jdbc-4_1-mrel-spec/jdbc4.1-fr-spec.pdf.

Note:

WebLogic Server currently does not support the java.sql.driver interfaces required to use the Java SE 7 getParrentLogger method. See http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/index.html?java/sql/Driver.html.

DataDirect 5.1 Support

Oracle provides WebLogic-branded versions of DataDirect Release 5.1 drivers for DB2, Informix, MS SQL Server, and Sybase. See Using WebLogic-branded DataDirect Drivers.

JavaDB Support

This document refers to the Derby database. The references regarding use of the Derby are equally applicable to Java DB. Java DB is Oracle's distribution of the open source Apache Derby Java database. It is distributed as part of the Java Development Kit. See Java DB at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javadb/overview/index.html.

Deprecations

The weblogic.jdbc.rowset interfaces and classes are deprecated in WebLogic Server 12.1.2. Use the reference implementation, com.sun.rowset, in the J2SE JRE/SDK.