Java + databases

[Kezzer]

Just a quicky. Had a look at JDBC but I need a database which can be stored locally (to hard-drive) without any other installations. It's a program which some of us will be developing but is aimed at non-technical people as well. Would a multi-dimensional array solve the problem and is it possible to save the data to a file and retrieve it later perhaps?

Cheers

[yamangman]

If you start with a database created and configured in whichever RDBMS then you shouldn't have any problems. You know how to embed SQL right?

[Kezzer]

Nope, i have no idea how to embed SQL. I might use ArrayList in java though

[DaBeeeenster]

http://hsqldb.sourceforge.net/

?

[Kezzer]

I'm still thinking arraylist. All we have to do is store small bits of data in an array which may get quite large. As long as we can store it somewhere then it'll be ok. Will have a look into that though, it's just it'll take a long long time to figure it out

[DsW]

If you're just wanting to store a few simple objects then a database is overkill - you may as well just use object serialization. Create the objects, write them out to disk (using ObjectOutputStream) and read them in (ObjectInputStream) when needed.

[Kezzer]

If you're just wanting to store a few simple objects then a database is overkill - you may as well just use object serialization. Create the objects, write them out to disk (using ObjectOutputStream) and read them in (ObjectInputStream) when needed.

That's exactly what we decided to do in the end

[tiggerai]

Have a look at db4o (db4o.com) saves everything into a little file.

[Kezzer]

Would be useful but we've already built a file input output system to do the same job so it's a bit late now

[Purple]

I would have definatly used an ObjectOutputStream - use arrays though - ArrayLists are not fast if you are talking 10000+ objects (to do with reindexing)

Write your own array management class that can take the object you are storing so you can avoid casting. And for the love of god use System.arraycopy() do not loop through the arrays copying the data arraycopy() is much much faster.