Inserting CLOB Values with setCharacterStream() Method

This section describes how to insert CLOB values with the PreparedStatement.setCharacterStream() method.

If you want to insert the entire content of a text file into a CLOB column, you should create a Reader object from this file, and use the PreparedStatement.setCharacterStream() method to pass the text file content to the CLOB column through the Reader object. There are 3 versions of the setCharacterStream() method, two of them were added as part of JDBC 4.0 (Java 1.6). Your JDBC driver may not support them:

To test those setCharacterStream() methods, wrote the following program:

/* SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.java
 * Copyright (c) HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
 */
import java.io.*;
import java.sql.*;
public class SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream {
  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 of setCharacterStream() methods";
      Statement sta = con.createStatement();
      sta.executeUpdate("DELETE FROM Article WHERE Subject = '"
        +subject+"'");

// Inserting CLOB value with a PreparedStatement
      PreparedStatement ps = con.prepareStatement(
        "INSERT INTO Article (Subject, Body) VALUES (?,?)");
      ps.setString(1, subject);
      Reader bodyIn =
        new FileReader("SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.java");

// Test 1 - This will not work with JDBC 3.0 drivers
//    ps.setCharacterStream(2, bodyIn);

// Test 2 - This will not work with JDBC 3.0 drivers
//   File fileIn = new File("SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.java");
//    ps.setCharacterStream(2, bodyIn, fileIn.length());

// Test 3 - This works with JDBC 3.0 drivers
      File fileIn = new File("SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.java");
      ps.setCharacterStream(2, bodyIn, (int) fileIn.length());

      int count = ps.executeUpdate();
      bodyIn.close();
      ps.close();

// Retrieving CLOB value with getString()
      sta = con.createStatement();
      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").substring(0,256));
      res.close();

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

Since JDBC Driver 4.2 is a JDBC 4.2 driver, all 3 tests are working:

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

The inserted record:
   Subject = Test of setCharacterStream() methods
   Body = /* SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.java
 * Copyright (c) HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
 */
import java.io.*;
import java.sql.*;
public class SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream {
  public static void main(String [] args) {
    Connection con = nul

If you are using a JDBC 3.0 driver, setCharacterStream(int parameterIndex, Reader reader) will not work. Here is what I got with the "Test 1" section open in my program with sqljdbc.jar and JDK 1.6. Remember that sqljdbc.jar is a JDBC 3.0 driver.

herong> java -cp .;sqljdbc.jar SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.AbstractMethodError: com
  .microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerPreparedStatement
  .setCharacterStream(ILjava/io/Reader;)V
  at SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.main(SqlServerClobSet...java:34)

If you are using a JDBC 3.0 driver, "Test 2" also failed for the same reason - fileIn.length() returns "long" and that setCharacterStream(int, Reader, long) is JDBC 4.0 method: Here is what I got with the "Test 2" section open in my program with sqljdbc.jar and JDK 1.6. Remember that sqljdbc.jar is a JDBC 3.0 driver.

herong> java -cp .;sqljdbc.jar SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.AbstractMethodError: com
  .microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerPreparedStatement
  .setCharacterStream(ILjava/io/Reader;J)V
  at SqlServerClobSetCharacterStream.main(SqlServerClobSet...java:38)

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