JDBC client driver

• 1: Installing the JDBC client driver
• 2: Modifying the Java CLASSPATH

1 - Installing the JDBC client driver

The JDBC client driver conforms to JDK 5 specifications. Download the JDBC client driver according to your environment and requirements. If you need a FIPS-compliant driver, see Installing the FIPS client driver for JDBC.

Installing Vertica from the RPM automatically installs the JDBC client driver. To use the JDBC client driver, you just need to add the Vertica JDBC .jar to your CLASSPATH.

To manually install the JDBC client driver:

1. Download the version of the JDBC client driver from the Client Drivers downloads page compatible with your version of Vertica.

2. Copy the .jar file to a directory in your Java CLASSPATH on every client system with which you want to access Vertica. You can either:

   • Copy the .jar file to its own directory (such as /opt/vertica/java/lib) and then add that directory to your CLASSPATH (recommended). See Modifying the Java CLASSPATH for details.

   • Copy the .jar file to directory that is already in your CLASSPATH (for example, a directory where you have placed other .jar files on which your application depends).

   • Copy the .jar file to the system-wide Java Extensions directory. The exact location differs between operating systems. Some examples include:

     • Windows: C:\Program Files\Java\jrex.x.x_x\lib\ext\

     • Mac OS: /Library/Java/Extensions or /Users/username/Library/Java/Extensions

3. Create a connection to test your configuration.

2 - Modifying the Java CLASSPATH

The CLASSPATH environment variable contains a list of directories where the Java runtime looks for library class files. For your Java client code to access Vertica, you must add to the CLASSPATH the directory containing the Vertica JDBC .jar.

Using symbolic links for the CLASSPATH

You can optionally add to the CLASSPATH a symbolic link vertica-jdbc-x.x.x.jar (where x.x.x is a version number) that points to the JDBC library .jar file, rather than the .jar file itself.

Using the symbolic link ensures that any updates to the JDBC library .jar file (which will use a different filename) will not invalidate your CLASSPATH setting, since the symbolic link's filename will remain the same. You just need to update the symbolic link to point at the new .jar file.

Linux and OS X

The following examples use a POSIX-compliant shell.

To set the CLASSPATH for the current session:

$ export CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:/opt/vertica/java/lib/vertica-jdbc-x.x.x.jar

To set the CLASSPATH for every session, add the following to your start-up file (such as ~/.profile or /etc/profile:

$ export CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:/opt/vertica/java/lib/vertica-jdbc-x.x.x.jar

Windows

Provide the class paths to the .jar, .zip, or .class files.

C:> SET CLASSPATH=classpath1;classpath2...

For example:

C:> SET CLASSPATH=C:\java\MyClasses\vertica-jdbc-x.x.x.jar

As with the Linux/UNIX settings, this setting only lasts for the current session. To set the CLASSPATH permanently, set an environment variable:

1. On the Windows Control Panel, click System.

2. Click Advanced or Advanced Systems Settings.

3. Click Environment Variables.

4. Under User variables, click New.

5. In the Variable name box, type CLASSPATH.

6. In the Variable value box, type the path to the Vertica JDBC .jar file on your system (for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\Vertica\JDBC\vertica-jdbc-x.x.x.jar)

Specifying the library directory in the Java command

Another, OS-agnostic way to tell the Java runtime where to find the Vertica JDBC driver is to explicitly add the directory containing the .jar file to the Java command line using either the -cp or -classpath argument. For example, you can start your client application with:

java -classpath /opt/vertica/java/lib/vertica-jdbc-x.x.x.jar myapplication.class

Your Java IDE may also let you add directories to your CLASSPATH, or let you import the Vertica JDBC driver into your project. See your IDE documentation for details.