Thread: JDBC - any query and the corresponding result set

I am having difficulty outputting the result set after a user input query. I need the user to be able to input any SQL query and print out the result set with field names and corresponding data. I can run any query but I am having trouble with the output, it stops after just one row (when I know there are several). Here is what I have:

public void sqlQuery1(String query) {
		System.out.println("Enter you sql query:");
		this.query = scan.nextLine();
 
		Connection conn = getConnection();
        Statement stmt = null;
        try {
        	stmt = conn.createStatement();
        	boolean resultsAvailable = stmt.execute(this.query);
            if(resultsAvailable){
                //query is a select query.
            	ResultSet rs = stmt.getResultSet();
                int i = 1;
            	while(rs.next()){
                    System.out.print(rs.getString(i) + "\t");
 
                    i++;
                }
            } else {
                //query can be update or any query apart from select query
                int count = stmt.getUpdateCount();
                System.out.println("Total records updated: " + count);
            }
		} catch (SQLException ex) {
			System.out.println("SQLException: " + ex.getMessage());
			System.out.println("SQLState: " + ex.getSQLState());
			System.out.println("VendorError: " + ex.getErrorCode());
		} catch (Exception e) {
            System.out.println(e.toString());
        }finally {
            try {
                if(stmt!=null)
                   stmt.close();
             } catch(SQLException se2) {
             try {
                if(conn!=null)
                   conn.close();
             } catch(SQLException se) {
                se.printStackTrace();
             }
 
             }
 
        }
        System.out.println();
        System.out.println();
}

No exceptions, it just stops after printing the first employees information (name, ssn, address, etc., there are 9 columns in all). Without the i loop it only printed out the first column. Actually after further inspection of the database it actually prints out the first column for the first row, the second column for the second row and so on. I am building a simple app for homework (I have finished the entirety of it except for printing out the result set for this method) so the security of it is not really an issue. I just can't figure out how to iterate through a result set with an unknown number of results.

Here is the actual question:

a method that will take a String query as its paramter and return the result of the query. The query can be ANY SQL select statement (you may assume that it will be select statement). In the result it should show the column names followed by the result. Note that since the method should work for any query, e.g select * from EMPLOYEE, select dno from EMPLOYEE, you need to write the code flexible enough so that it will print out the column names instead of hardcoding the column names.

I actually got it to work. Here's the final code:

public void sqlQuery1(String query) {
		System.out.println("Enter you sql query:");
		this.query = scan.nextLine();
 
		Connection conn = getConnection();
        Statement stmt = null;
        try {
        	stmt = conn.createStatement();
        	boolean notDone = true;
 
        	while(notDone) {
 
        			ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(this.query);
        			ResultSetMetaData rsmd = rs.getMetaData();
        			int columnCount = rsmd.getColumnCount();
 
        			for(int i = 1; i <= columnCount; i++) {
        				int columnWidth = rsmd.getColumnDisplaySize(i) + 5;
            			System.out.format("%-" + columnWidth + "s", rsmd.getColumnName(i));
        			} //for
        			System.out.println();
        			while(rs.next()) {
        				for(int i = 1; i <= columnCount; i++) {
        					int columnWidth = rsmd.getColumnDisplaySize(i) + 5;
        					System.out.format("%-" + columnWidth + "s", rs.getString(i));
 
        				} //for
        				System.out.println();
        			} //rs.next while
        			notDone = false;
 
        	} //notDone while
        } catch (SQLException ex) {
			System.out.println("SQLException: " + ex.getMessage());
			System.out.println("SQLState: " + ex.getSQLState());
			System.out.println("VendorError: " + ex.getErrorCode());
		} catch (Exception e) {
            System.out.println(e.toString());
        }finally {
            try {
                if(stmt!=null)
                   stmt.close();
             } catch(SQLException se2) {
             try {
                if(conn!=null)
                   conn.close();
             } catch(SQLException se) {
                se.printStackTrace();
             } //last catch
        } //finally
        } //original try
        System.out.println();
        System.out.println();
	}