Java JDBC using SQLite/Example base class

This page provides an example of a base class you can use as a skeleton for creating your own, and ideas of ways of extending this class. You should note that your central focus of concern should be on getting your initial context set up correctly, and there are many and diverse ways of skinning this particular cat. This base class is abstract since we will want to extend it to more precisely suit our requirements. There is however nothing particularly esoteric in there to prevent you concretizing this class by declaring it public and using it out of the box, modifying and supplying your own constructor(s) accordingly.

You should also note that there are a number of fields and methods in this base class which are declared public which more properly should be declared private, however these have been left public for visibility and since you may wish to experiment with the implications of some of the calls. Additionally, leaving these fields and methods public gives you a broad brush scope to invoke and adjust them by reflection.

Base Class

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.sql.Statement;


/** Database connection class & utilities **/

abstract class Db {

    public  String sDriver = ""; 
    public  String sUrl = null;
    public  int iTimeout = 30;
    public  Connection conn = null;
    public  Statement statement = null;


    /* Stub constructor for quick instantiation o/t fly for using some of the ancillary stuff */

    public  Db()
    {}

    /* quick and dirty constructor to test the database passing the DriverManager name and the fully loaded url to handle */
    /* NB this will typically be available if you make this class concrete and not abstract */
    public Db(String sDriverToLoad, String sUrlToLoad) throws Exception
    {
        init(sDriverToLoad, sUrlToLoad);
    }
    
    public void init(String sDriverVar, String sUrlVar) throws Exception
    {
        setDriver(sDriverVar);
        setUrl(sUrlVar);
        setConnection();
        setStatement();
    }

    private void setDriver(String sDriverVar)
    {
        sDriver = sDriverVar;
    }

    private void setUrl(String sUrlVar)
    {
        sUrl = sUrlVar;
    }

    public  void setConnection() throws Exception {
        Class.forName(sDriver);
        conn = DriverManager.getConnection(sUrl);
    }


    public  Connection getConnection() {
        return conn;
    }

    public  void setStatement() throws Exception {
        if (conn == null) {
            setConnection();
        }
        statement = conn.createStatement();
        statement.setQueryTimeout(iTimeout);  // set timeout to 30 sec.
    }

    public  Statement getStatement() {
        return statement;
    }

    public  void executeStmt(String instruction) throws SQLException {
        statement.executeUpdate(instruction);
    }

    // processes an array of instructions e.g. a set of SQL command strings passed from a file
    //NB you should ensure you either handle empty lines in files by either removing them or parsing them out 
    // since they will generate spurious SQLExceptions when they are encountered during the iteration....
    public void executeStmt(String[] instructionSet) throws SQLException {
        for (int i = 0; i < instructionSet.length; i++) {
            executeStmt(instructionSet[i]);
        }
    }

    public ResultSet executeQry(String instruction) throws SQLException {
        return statement.executeQuery(instruction);
    } 

    public void closeConnection() {
        try { conn.close(); } catch (Exception ignore) {}
    }

}

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