2 Getting Started with the Application

2.1.1 Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1)

To develop the Java application, you need a working installation of Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1) Server with the HR schema, which comes with the database. The installation creates an instance of Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1) and provides additional tools for managing this database. For more information, refer to the following Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1) installation guides and release notes:

• Oracle Database Installation Guide for Linux

• Oracle Database Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows

DROP TRIGGER HR.UPDATE_JOB_HISTORY;
DROP TRIGGER HR.SECURE_EMPLOYEES;
DELETE FROM JOB_HISTORY;

2.1.2 J2SE or JDK

To create and compile Java applications, you need the full Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition, Software Development Kit (J2SE SDK), formerly known as the Java Development Kit (JDK). You also need the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

2.1.3 Integrated Development Environment

For ease in developing the application, you can choose to develop your application in an integrated development environment (IDE). This guide uses Oracle JDeveloper to create the files for this application. For more information about installing JDeveloper, refer to Installing Oracle JDeveloper.

2.1.4 Web Server

The sample application developed in this guide uses JavaServer Pages (JSP) technology to display information and accept input from users. To deploy these pages, you need a Web server with a servlet and JSP container, such as the Apache Tomcat application server.

This guide uses the embedded server called the Oracle WebLogic Server in JDeveloper for deploying the JSP pages. If you choose not to install Oracle JDeveloper, then any Web server that enables you to deploy JSP pages should suffice.

JDeveloper supports direct deployment to the following production application servers:

• Oracle WebLogic Server

• Oracle Application Server

• Apache Tomcat

• IBM WebSphere

• JBoss

For more information about these servers, please refer to vendor-specific documentation.

2.2.1 Checking Installed Directories and Files

Installing Oracle Java products creates the following directories:

• ORACLE_HOME/jdbc

• ORACLE_HOME /jlib

Check if the directories described in Table 2-1 have been created and populated in the ORACLE_HOME directory.

2.2.2 Checking the Environment Variables

This section describes the environment variables that must be set for the JDBC Thin Driver. You must set the classpath for your installed JDBC Thin Driver. For JDK 6, you must set the following values for the CLASSPATH variable:

For JDK 7, you must set the following values for the CLASSPATH variable:

Ensure that there is only one JDBC class file, such as ojdbc6.jar, and one globalization classes file, orai18n.jar, in the CLASSPATH variable.

2.2.3 Determining the JDBC Driver Version

Starting from Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), you can get details about the JDBC support in the database as follows:

> java -jar ojdbc6.jar
  Oracle 12.1.0.0. JDBC 4.0 compiled with JDK6

In addition, you can determine the version of the JDBC driver that you installed by calling the getDriverVersion method of the OracleDatabaseMetaData class.

Example 2-1 illustrates how to determine the driver version:

import java.sql.*;
import oracle.jdbc.*;
import oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleDataSource;

class JDBCVersion
{
  public static void main (String args[]) throws SQLException
  {
    OracleDataSource ods = new OracleDataSource();
    ods.setURL("jdbc:oracle:thin:hr/hr@localhost:1521/oracle");
    Connection conn = ods.getConnection();

    // Create Oracle DatabaseMetaData object
    DatabaseMetaData meta = conn.getMetaData();

    // gets driver info:
    System.out.println("JDBC driver version is " + meta.getDriverVersion());
  }
}