Difference between execute, executeQuery, executeUpdate

[Mike lothar]

Hi All,
what is the Difference between execute, executeQuery, executeUpdate. please tell what will each method will return?.

Thank you
Mike

[Ben Souther]

The best place to find answers to questions like this is the Javadocs:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/sql/PreparedStatement.html


boolean execute()
Executes the SQL statement in this PreparedStatement object, which may be any kind of SQL statement.

ResultSet executeQuery()
Executes the SQL query in this PreparedStatement object and returns the ResultSet object generated by the query.

int executeUpdate()
Executes the SQL statement in this PreparedStatement object, which must be an SQL INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE statement; or an SQL statement that returns nothing, such as a DDL statement.

[Lalit Mehra]

the names are self explanatory dear friend ...

executeUpdate() -> database UPDATE statements
executeQuery() -> database QUERY statements
execute() -> anything that comes in

[Deepthi Tanguturi]

executeQuery()---for getting the data from database
executeUpdate()---for insert,update,delete
execute()-any kind of operations

[Vigneswaran Marimuthu]

executeQuery() --- This is used generally for reading the content of the database. The output will be in the form of ResultSet. Generally SELECT statement is used.

executeUpdate() --- This is generally used for altering the databases. Generally DROP TABLE or DATABASE, INSERT into TABLE, UPDATE TABLE, DELETE from TABLE statements will be used in this. The output will be in the form of int. This int value denotes the number of rows affected by the query.

execute() --- If you dont know which method to be used for executing SQL statements, this method can be used. This will return a boolean. TRUE indicates the result is a ResultSet and FALSE indicates it has the int value which denotes number of rows affected by the query.