How do I read table metadata?

Question

Hi
Can anyone advise me how to read the metadata in through a JDBC connection?
Specifically I am connecting to a DB2 database and reading in the table names for a given schema from the table: -
// Connect to DB and read in the table names
stmt = conn.createStatement();
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("SELECT NAME FROM SYSTOOLS.HMON_ATM_INFO WHERE SCHEMA = '" + schema + "'");
while(rs.next()){
tblNames.add(rs.getString("NAME"));
Now I want to iterate through my ArrayList tblNames and use each table name to query each table's metadata, specifically the name of each field in the table and its datatype and size. Is it possible to do this through the getMetaData call something like this: -
// Got the table names so read the table metrics
Iterator<?> tnms = tblNames.iterator();
while(tnms.hasNext()){
String[] types = {"NAME"};
String tableName = (String)tnms.next();
DatabaseMetaData dbmd = conn.getMetaData();
rs = dbmd.getTables("", schema, tableName, types);
Thanks in advance
Brad

Answer 1

OK found how to do it in case anyone else is looking I will answer this myself: -
package db_tools;
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DatabaseMetaData;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.sql.Statement;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Iterator;
* @author brad
public class Db2MetricsManager {
     // jdbc Connection
     private Connection conn = null;
     private ArrayList<String> tblNames;
     // Constructors
     Db2MetricsManager(){
     Db2MetricsManager(Connection conn){
          this.conn = conn;
          tblNames = new ArrayList<String>();
     // Methods
     public ArrayList<String> getTableNames(){
          return tblNames;
     public void readTableMetricsBySchema(String schema){
          Statement stmt = null;
          try{
               // Connect to DB and read in the table names
               String[] types = {"TABLE"};
               DatabaseMetaData dbmdt = conn.getMetaData();
               ResultSet rst = dbmdt.getTables(null, schema, "%", types);
               while(rst.next()){
                    tblNames.add(rst.getString("TABLE_NAME"));
               // Got the table names so read the table metrics
               ArrayList<String> columns = new ArrayList<String>();
               Iterator<?> tnms = tblNames.iterator();
               while(tnms.hasNext()){
                    String tableName = (String)tnms.next();
                    System.out.println("TABLE_NAME = " + tableName);
                    DatabaseMetaData dbmd = conn.getMetaData();
                    ResultSet rsc = dbmd.getColumns(null, schema, tableName, "%");
                    while(rsc.next()){
                         String cn = rsc.getString("COLUMN_NAME");
                         System.out.print("COLUMN_NAME = " + cn);
                         String dt = rsc.getString("TYPE_NAME");
                         System.out.print("\t\tTYPE_NAME = " + dt);
                         int cs = rsc.getInt("COLUMN_SIZE");
                         System.out.print("\t\tCOLUMN_SIZE = " + cs);
                         System.out.println();
                         /** TODO Create a UDT to hold the metadata and add to a collection */
                    System.out.println();
          catch (SQLException sqle){
               System.err.println(sqle.getMessage());
          finally{
               if(stmt != null){
                    try{stmt.close();}catch(Exception e){};
}