SQLState or Error Code

Question

Hello all I am new here.
I just started using java and mySQL to write a system and I have some questions about using those try/catch blocks to catch exceptions.
Do I use those try/catch to catch the exceptions such as duplicate key entry?
If yes, how do I identify those exceptions?
For example, I am now trying to insert two records with same primary key to generate a duplicate key entry SQL error. How do I know for sure that the exception caught is a duplicate key entry error?
I tried using getSQLState to get the error state to be "S1009". So do I use this value to identify duplicate key entry error? but I don't feel right about this method.
Please advise what I should do. Thanks in advance.
Wo Lay

Answer 1

try using getErrorCode(). here is the excerpt from the javadoc
getErrorCode
public int getErrorCode()Retrieves the vendor-specific exception code for this SQLException object.
Returns:
the vendor's error code