Question

My General Question is: Is it inefficient/bad practice to call preparedStatement.executeBatch() if there’s only one query in the batch?

I’m writing a generic method for the Java Helper Library to execute a query. There’s a javabean called HelperQuery which holds a list of arrays another javabean called QueryParameter which holds a type (like STRING, BLOB, INT, etc.) and a value. The QueryParameter is used to fill the HelperQuery‘s PreparedStatement. In many cases, there will be only one array of QueryParameters.

My Specific Question is: Should I handle things differently if there’s only one array of QueryParameters or would it be ok to handle things exactly the same regardless of how many QueryParameters there are?

Answer 1

executeBatch is a “super” method from the PreparedStatement‘s parent Statement which returns an int[] which indicates the success/failure of the executed queries and executeQuery returns a ResultSet. Therefore, it would be a good idea to have the two be totally different method calls so the developer can handle them differently. I would recommend:

1. An executeQuery(HelperQuery helperQuery) method which will return the associated ResultSet and will only get the first QueryParameters from the HelperQuery (for convenience) and another method which the developer can specify which QueryParameter set to use (either have them specify a number of the QueryParameter list or just pass in the QueryParameters explicitly (I recommend the second of the two)).
2. An executeBatch(HelperQuery helperQuery method which will return the int[] and the developer can handle that as they wish.

It’s always good to give the user (developer in this case) power to do what they want (but also provide for a simple solution for them to perform common tasks).