Closing JDBC Connections in Pool - java

Our standard code section for using JDBC is...
Connection conn = getConnection(...);
Statement stmt = conn.conn.createStatement (ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_INSENSITIVE,
ResultSet.CONCUR_READ_ONLY);
ResultSet rset = stmt.executeQuery (sqlQuery);
// do stuff with rset
rset.close(); stmt.close(); conn.close();
Question 1: When using Connection Pool, should one close the Connection at the end? If so, isn't the purpose of pooling lost? And if not, how does the DataSource know when a particular instance of Connection is freed up and can be reused? I am a little confused on this one, any pointers appreciated.
Question 2: Is the following method anything close to standard? Looks like an attempt to get a connection from the pool, and if DataSource cannot be established, use the old fashioned DriverManager. We are not even sure which part is getting executed at runtime.
Repeating the question above, should one close the Connection coming out of such a method?
synchronized public Connection getConnection (boolean pooledConnection)
throws SQLException {
if (pooledConnection) {
if (ds == null) {
try {
Context envCtx = (Context)
new InitialContext().lookup("java:comp/env");
ds = (DataSource) envCtx.lookup("jdbc/NamedInTomcat");
return ds.getConnection();
} catch (NamingException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}}
return (ds == null) ? getConnection (false) : ds.getConnection();
}
return DriverManager.getConnection(
"jdbc:mysql://"+ipaddy+":"+dbPort +"/" + dbName, uName, pWord);
}
Edit: I think we are getting the pooled connection since we do not see a stack trace.

When using Connection Pool, should one close the Connection at the end? If so, isn't the purpose of pooling lost? And if not, how does the DataSource know when a particular instance of Connection is freed up and can be reused? I am a little confused on this one, any pointers appreciated.
Yes, certainly you need to close the pooled connection as well. It's actually a wrapper around the actual connection. It wil under the covers release the actual connection back to the pool. It's further up to the pool to decide whether the actual connection will actually be closed or be reused for a new getConnection() call. So, regardless of whether you're using a connection pool or not, you should always close all the JDBC resources in reversed order in the finally block of the try block where you've acquired them. In Java 7 this can be further simplified by using try-with-resources statement.
Is the following method anything close to standard? Looks like an attempt to get a connection from the pool, and if DataSource cannot be established, use the old fashioned DriverManager. We are not even sure which part is getting executed at runtime. Repeating the question above, should one close the Connection coming out of such a method?
The example is pretty scary. You just need to lookup/initialize the DataSource only once during application's startup in some constructor / initialization of an applicationwide DB config class. Then just call getConnection() on the one and same datasource throughout the rest of application's lifetime. No need for synchronization nor nullchecks.
See also:
Is it safe to use a static java.sql.Connection instance in a multithreaded system?
Am I Using JDBC Connection Pooling?

The pools typically return you a wrapped Connection object, where the close() method is overridden, typically returning the Connection to the pool. Calling close() is OK and probably still required.
A close() method would probably look like this:
public void close() throws SQLException {
pool.returnConnection(this);
}
For your second question, you could add a logger to show whether the bottom block ever runs. I would imagine though you'd only want one way or the other for the configuration of your database connections. We solely use a pool for our database accesses. Either way, closing the connection would be pretty important to prevent leaks.

Actually, the best approach to connection management is to not farm them out to any code anywhere.
Create a SQLExecutor class that is the one and only location which opens and closes connections.
The entire rest of the application then pumps statements into the executor rather than getting connections from the pool and managing (or mismanaging them) all over the place.
You can have as many instances of the executor as you want, but no one should be writing code that opens and closes connections on its own behalf.
Conveniently, this also lets you log all your SQL from a single set of code.

Related

Should the connection be closed after each query in a long time transaction?

We are currently dealing with the function, that has to work partially with the database, and partially with a service, whice operations are time-consuming. So, generally speaking, here is a transactional method, that has a code like this:
Connection conn = null;
try {
conn = getConnection(); // This I get from the connection pool
Employee emp = queryDatabase(id);
// Point A - ??
Response resp = makeLongTimeServiceCall(emp);
// Point B - ??
anotherQueryDatabase(resp);
} catch (Exception e) {
throw e; // And this also rolls back the transaction
} finally {
// If conn is not closed, close it, so there would be no leaks
}
So the big question is - should I close the connection at point A and then get it again from the connection pool at point B, so that other servlets could use that connection while I interact with the service? My guess is that I should, but will this hurt my transaction?
In many circumstances: yes, closing and reopening the connection sounds good. However you need to understand the implication of doing them in two separate transactions (by closing and re-opening the connection you are inherently doing them in separate transaction).
If another user invokes an operation that changes the state of your data at Point B will the end result still be correct?
If you don't have a transaction you can close the connection and ask for a new connection when needed.
Remember that if you are using a connection pool closing a connection will not really close the connection, but only flag it as reusable by other threads.
Database connections shouldn't be left open. Open the connections just when you need to execute a query and close it as early as possible. So my solution is, YES.
if your application doesn't close connection properly may lead to some issues like the
connection pool maxing out.
Applications Not Properly Closing Connections:
When writing an application to use the WebSphere Application Server(WAS) datasource, the best way is fallowing get/use/close pattern.
1.get
-This is when the application makes a request to get a connection from the pool.
The application will first lookup the datasource name and then do a getConnection() call.
2.use
-This is when the application executes a query and waits for a response
3.close
-This is the final stage when the application has received the response from the database and is now done using that connection.
-The application should call close() in a finally block to close out the connection and return it to the free pool.
If your application does not follow this pattern, you may see connections staying open for long periods of time. This is especially seen when the application does not close the connection properly. After the response is received from the database, the application should be calling close in a finally block. If the application does not explicitly close the connection, that connection will stay open forever in WAS until that server is restarted. This is known as a connection leak. To resolve this type of issue, you will have to modify your application to close every connection
for further information: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/common-reasons-why-connections-stay-open-long-period-time-websphere-application-server

Tomcat Connection pool : few methods not releasing connection

I am using tomcat connection pooling. But I was following exception
org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp.SQLNestedException: Cannot get a connection, pool error Timeout waiting for idle object
So I put in the following lines in context.xml to find the leak :
removeAbandoned="true" logAbandoned="true" removeAbandonedTimeout="3"
Then I started getting following exception org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp.AbandonedTrace$AbandonedObjectException: DBCP object created 2015-01-17 22:12:18 by the following code was never closed:
So I found two culprit methods that were causing this leak. The two methods have common way of getting connection i.e. calling unwrap to get access to driver specific connection.
try (Connection conn = DataSourceConnectionPool.getConnection().unwrap(OracleConnection.class);
OracleCallableStatement cstmt = (OracleCallableStatement) conn.prepareCall(MIGRATE_ACCOUNT)) {
...
....
)
Important think to notice is that I am using try block from JDK7 i.e. Automatic Resource Management, so i dont need the finally block. Connection closing is handled by JDK automatically. But why this unwrapped connection is not closing. And when I am trying to do following :
try (Connection poolConn = DataSourceConnectionPool.getConnection();
Connection conn = poolConn.unwrap(OracleConnection.class);
I am getting java.sql.SQLException: Already closed. So how close this connection. Do I have to do it manually without using try block? Shouldn't try block handle be able to handle this?
This is incorrect usage of a connection pool. You should never call close() on an unwrapped connection.
The normal flow of using a pooled connection is
Get the Connection, the pool gets a physical connection and returns it wrapped in its own wrapper
You use the Connection
You call close() on the Connection. This doesn't actually close anything, the pool's wrapper intercepts the close() call and simply returns the (still active) connection to the pool.
This works because the pool has a wrapper class, say PoolableConnection that implements Connection. PoolableConnection delegates to the underlying connection for carrying out actual work, but it implements (amongst other things) close() differently. This destroys the current PoolableConnection wrapper and returns the underying Connection to the connection pool. For example.
This way, your program logic can get a connection from a DataSource, use the Connection and then close(), just as it would a normal, unpooled, Connection.
It's exactly this transparency that makes connection pools so easy to use.
Now, when you call unwrap, the PooledConnection gives you access to it's internal, real, Connection delegate.
What you do is call close() on the delegate!
This has two effects:
it does not call close() on PooledConnection, so the the Connection does not get returned to the pool.
it closes the underying connection from underneath the pool. This shouldn't be a problem, as the pool would deal with dropped connections itself.
So you need to be very careful. Always call close() on the Connection you have gotten from the pool, to return it to the pool. Never call close() on the underlying connection.
So your code should be:
try (final Connection poolConn = DataSourceConnectionPool.getConnection()) {
final Connection conn = poolConn.unwrap(OracleConnection.class);
//do stuff with conn
//do not close conn!!
}
//poolConn is returned to the pool

Should a database connection stay open all the time or only be opened when needed?

I have a bukkit plugin (minecraft) that requires a connection to the database.
Should a database connection stay open all the time, or be opened and closed when needed?
The database connection must be opened only when its needed and closed after doing all the necessary job with it. Code sample:
Prior to Java 7:
Connection con = null;
try {
con = ... //retrieve the database connection
//do your work...
} catch (SQLException e) {
//handle the exception
} finally {
try {
if (con != null) {
con.close();
}
} catch (SQLException shouldNotHandleMe) {
//...
}
}
Java 7:
try (Connection con = ...) {
} catch (SQLException e) {
}
//no need to call Connection#close since now Connection interface extends Autocloseable
But since manually opening a database connection is too expensive, it is highly recommended to use a database connection pool, represented in Java with DataSource interface. This will handle the physical database connections for you and when you close it (i.e. calling Connection#close), the physical database connection will just be in SLEEP mode and still be open.
Related Q/A:
Java Connection Pooling
Some tools to handle database connection pooling:
BoneCP
c3po
Apache Commons DBCP
HikariCP
Depends on what are your needs.
Creating a connection takes some time, so if you need to access database frequently it's better to keep the connection open. Also it's better to create a pool, so that many users can access database simultaneously(if it's needed).
If you need to use this connection only few times you may not keep it open, but you will have delay when you would like to access database. So i suggest you to make a timer that will keep connection open for some time(connection timeout).
You need to close your connections after each query executions.Sometimes you need to execute multiple queries at the same time because the queries are hanging from each other.Such as "first insert task then assign it to the employees".At this time execute your queries on the same transaction and commit it, if some errors occur then rollback.By default autocommit is disabled in JDBC. Example
Use connection pooling.If you are developing a webapplication then use App Server connection pooling.App server will use the same pooling for each of your applications so you can control the connection count from the one point.Highly recommend the Apache Tomcat Connection pooling.Example
As an additional info:
Connection, Statement and ResultSet.
1.If you close connection you don't need close statement or resultset.Both of them will be closed automatically
2.If you close Statement it will close ResultSet also
3.if you use try-with-resources like this:
try (Connection con = ...) {
} catch (SQLException e) {
}
it will close the connection automatically.Because try-with-resources require autoclosable objects and Connection is autocloseable.You can see the details about try-with-resources here
Actually, it's all matter on how you write your application! It's an art, but sadly everyone takes a tutorial for a good practice like Microsoft's tutorials.
If you know what you are coding, then you keep your connection open for the lifetime of the application. It's simple, not because you have to go at work in the morning that everyday we have to build a special route just for you! You take that single route or 2 or 4 like everyone does! You judge for the traffics and you build 2, 4 or 6 routes as needed. If there is traffic with these 4 or 6 routes, you wait!
Happy coding.
The Connection should be opened only when required. If it is open before the actual need, it reduces one active connection from the connection pool..so it ultimately effects the users of the application.
So,it is always a better practice to open connection only when required and closing it after completion of process.
Always try puttting you connection close logic inside the finally block that will ensure that your connection will be closed,even if any exception occurs in the application
finally
{
connection.close()
}

A persistent connection with JDBC to MySQL

I have an application that connects to MySQL using JDBC. There are cases where the JDBC connection lies idle for hours (maybe even days) and its loosing its connection to MySQL and then excepts when it tries to execute a query. What is the best solution for this?
Keeping the connection open for an undertemined time is a bad practice. The DB will force a close when it's been open for a too long time. You should write your JDBC code so that it always closes the connection (and statement and resultset) in the finally block of the very same try block where you've acquired them in order to prevent resource leaking like this.
However, acquiring the connection on every hiccup is indeed a pretty expensive task, so you'd like to use a connection pool. Decent connection pools will manage the opening, testing, reusing and closing the connections themselves. This does however not imply that you can change your JDBC code to never close them. You still need to close them since that would actually release the underlying connection back to the pool for future reuse.
There are several connection pools, like Apache DBCP which is singlethreaded and thus poor in performance, C3P0 which is multithreaded and performs better, and Tomcat JDBC for the case that you're using Tomcat and wouldn't like to use the builtin DBCP due to bad performance.
You can create connection pools programmatically, here's an example with C3P0:
ComboPooledDataSource dataSource = new ComboPooledDataSource();
dataSource.setDriverClass("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
dataSource.setJdbcUrl("jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/dbname");
dataSource.setUser("username");
dataSource.setPassword("password");
Do it once during application's startup, then you can use it as follows:
Connection connection = null;
// ...
try {
connection = dataSource.getConnection();
// ...
} finally {
// ...
if (connection != null) try { connection.close(); } catch (SQLException ignore) {}
}
When you're running inside a JNDI-capable container like a servletcontainer (e.g. Tomcat), then you can also declare it as a java.sql.DataSource (Tomcat specific manual here). It will then use the servletcontainer-provided connection pooling facilities. You can then acquire the datasource as follows:
DataSource dataSource = (DataSource) new InitialContext().lookup("java:comp/env/jdbc/YourDataSourceName");
There are libraries, such as Apache's DBCP which can do connection pooling. A part of this is they can be setup to automatically test the connection when you go to use it (such as "SELECT NOW() FROM DUAL", or something else harmless) and automatically re-establish the connection transparently if necessary, allowing your application to pretend that the connection is everlasting.
Check here:
http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/jdbc/basics/connecting.html
Basically, you should use DataSource and always do a getConnection() before using it. DataSource, unless there's something terribly wrong, will reconnect if necessary.

JDBC Query excecution

I am facing an issue while executing queries.I use the same resultSet and statement for excecuting all the queries.Now I face an intermittent SQlException saying that connection is already closed.Now we have to either have separate resultSet for each query or have lock like structure.Can anyone tell which is better.I think introducing locks will slow down the process.Am I right?
Update:
To be more clear.The error may happen because the finally block gets called before all the queries get executed and the connection gets closed and exception will be thrown.
This is the exception I get
java.sql.SQLException: Connection has
already been closed. at
weblogic.jdbc.wrapper.PoolConnection.checkConnection(PoolConnection.java:81)
at
weblogic.jdbc.wrapper.ResultSet.preInvocationHandler(ResultSet.java:68)
at
weblogic.jdbc.wrapper.ResultSet_com_informix_jdbc_IfxResultSet.next(Unknown
Source) at
com.test.test.execute(test.java:76)
at
org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.processActionPerform(RequestProcessor.java:413)
at
org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.process(RequestProcessor.java:225)
at
org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.process(ActionServlet.java:1858)
at
org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.doPost(ActionServlet.java:459)
at
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:760)
at
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:853)
at
weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl$ServletInvocationAction.run(ServletStubImpl.java:1077)
at
weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.invokeServlet(ServletStubImpl.java:465)
at
weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.invokeServlet(ServletStubImpl.java:348)
at
weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext$ServletInvocationAction.run(WebAppServletContext.java:7047)
at
weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:321)
at
weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:121)
at
weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.invokeServlet(WebAppServletContext.java:3902)
at
weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletRequestImpl.execute(ServletRequestImpl.java:2773)
at
weblogic.kernel.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:224)
at
weblogic.kernel.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:183)
Sample code:
ResultSet rst=null;
Statement stmt=null;
Connection con=DBConnection.getConnection();
stmt=con.createStatement();
rst=stmt.executeQuery("select * from dual");
while(rst.next())
{ : ://Some code }
rst=stmt.executeQuery("select * from doctor where degree="BM");
while(rst.next())
{ //blah blah }
finally
{
//close con,rst and stmt
}
you are not reusing the resultset, you are leaking resultsets.
rst=stmt.executeQuery... generates a new resultset and the previous resultset is never closed :(
It appears that the code in question has issues in multi-threaded environment.
DBConnection.getConnection() is probably returning the same connection to all threads. When multiple threads are processing multiple requests, the first thread that finishes execution of the method will close the connection, leaving all other threads high and sundry.
I'm speculating here, but is appears that the connection object returned by DBConnection is an instance member of the DBConnection object, and that would qualify as a bad practice for a connection manager in a multi-threaded environment.
A code fix would avoid the usage of instance members for Connection, Statement (and the like), and the ResultSet objects.
I'm not sure what's going on without knowing more about your code. Is it threaded ? Is the underlying database going down (or are you losing connectivity to it).
One thing I would do is to implement connection pooling (via Apache DBCP, say). This framework will maintain a pool of connections to your database and validate these connections before handing them out to you. You would ask for a new connection each time you make a query (or perhaps set of queries) but because they're pooled this shouldn't be a major oeverhead.
Unless your connection to the database has really been closed I think you did something more like this:
try {
return resultSet.getBoolean("SUCCESS");
} finally {
resultSet.close();
}
This code will actually close the connection before your result set is being evaluated, resulting in the exception you show.

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