Inserting CLOB Values with SQL INSERT Statements

This section describes how to insert CLOB values as string literals using SQL INSERT statements.

The simplest way to insert a character string into a CLOB column is to use a SQL INSERT statement and include the character string a SQL string literal in the statement as shown in this sample program:

/* SqlServerClobInsert.java
 - Copyright (c) 2014, HerongYang.com, All Rights Reserved.
 */
import java.sql.*;
public class SqlServerClobInsert {
  public static void main(String [] args) {
    Connection con = null;
    try {
      com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDataSource ds
        = new com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDataSource();
      ds.setServerName("localhost");
//      ds.setPortNumber(60782);
      ds.setInstanceName("SQLEXPRESS");
      ds.setDatabaseName("AdventureWorks2019");
      ds.setUser("Herong");
      ds.setPassword("T0pSecret");
      con = ds.getConnection();

// Deleting the record for re-testing
      String subject = "Test on INSERT statement";
      Statement sta = con.createStatement();
      sta.executeUpdate("DELETE FROM Article WHERE Subject = '"
        +subject+"'");

// Inserting CLOB value with a regular insert statement
      sta = con.createStatement();
      int count = sta.executeUpdate(
        "INSERT INTO Article"
        +" (Subject, Body)"
        +" VALUES ('"+subject+"', 'A BLOB (Binary Large OBject) is"
        +" a large chunk of data which is stored in a database.')");

// Retrieving CLOB value with getString()
      ResultSet res = sta.executeQuery(
        "SELECT * FROM Article WHERE Subject = '"+subject+"'");
      res.next();
      System.out.println("The inserted record: ");
      System.out.println("   Subject = "+res.getString("Subject"));
      System.out.println("   Body = "+res.getString("Body"));
      res.close();
      sta.close();

      con.close();
    } catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
  }
}

Compilation and execution of this program is below. The output confirms that the character string value was correctly inserted into the CLOB column:

herong> java -cp .;mssql-jdbc-9.4.1.jre16.jar SqlServerClobInsert

The inserted record:
   Subject = Test on INSERT statement
   Body = A BLOB (Binary Large OBject) is a large chunk of data
which is stored in a database.

Using SQL string literals to insert CLOB values into database is not recommended, because quote characters (') in the CLOB values must be replaced with escape sequences ('').

Using PreparedStatement with setXXX() method is a much safer choice.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) Introduction

 JDK (Java SE) Installation

 Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition

 Microsoft JDBC Driver for SQL Server

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - Query Statements and Result Sets

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - DatabaseMetaData Object

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - DDL Statements

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - DML Statements

 SQL Server - PreparedStatement

SQL Server CLOB (Character Large Object) - TEXT

 Overview of CLOB (Character Large Object)

 Create Tables with CLOB Columns

Inserting CLOB Values with SQL INSERT Statements

 Inserting CLOB Values with setString() Method

 Inserting CLOB Values with setCharacterStream() Method

 Closing InputStream Too Early on setCharacterStream()

 Retrieving CLOB Values with getString() Method

 Retrieving CLOB Values with getCharacterStream() Method

 Retrieving CLOB Values with getClob() Method

 Inserting CLOB Values with setClob() Method

 SQL Server BLOB (Binary Large Object) - BLOB

 Using Connection Pool with JDBC

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - Flat Text Files

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - MS Access

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - MS SQL Server

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB