What's the better approach?

Question

Hi, I was just making a program that access a DB through JDBC, and I got myself into this dilemma
What's the better approach to make a connection to a DB?
approach #1(use of singleton pattern)
import java.sql.*;
public class DBConnection {
    private ResultSet rs;
    private Connection conn;
    private PreparedStatement ps;
    private static boolean singleton = false;
    private DBConnection() throws Exception{
        Class.forName("driverPath").newInstance();
     conn = DriverManager.getConnection("url", "user", "pass");
     singleton = true;
    public static DBConnection getInstance() throws Exception{
        if(singleton)
         return null;
        return new DBConnection();
    protected void finalize() throws Throwable {
        //close the connection and release resources...
        singleton = false;
    //Methods to make DB querys and stuff.     
}approach #2 (make a connection only when doing querys)
public class DBConnection {
    private ResultSet rs;
    private Connection conn;
    private PreparedStatement ps;
    public DBConnection() throws Exception {
        Class.forName("driverPath").newInstance();
    //Just some random method to access the DB
    public ArrayList<Row> selectAllFromTable() {
        ArrayList<Row> returnValue = new ArrayList<Row>();
     try {
         conn = DriverManager.getConnection("url", "user", "pass");
         //make querys and fill the arraylist with rows from the table
     } catch(Exception ex) {
         returnValue = null;
         ex.printStackTrace();
     } finally {
         if(ps != null)
             ps.close();
            if(rs != null)
          rs.close();
         if(conn != null)
          conn.close();
     return returnValue;
}I know this classes maybe don't even compile and I don't handle the Exceptions, I'm just trying to make a point about how to manage the connection
So, what it's the better approach in your opinions? #1? #2? neither?

Answer 1

Hi,
I'm resurrecting this thread to ask is this approach OK?
I'm trying to make a single MySql JDBC connection accessible throughout the model.
I'm planning to use it in a Swing application. Whilst I realise the Swing apps are inherently multi-threaded, everything I plan to do can (I think) be done within the constraint that all access to model happens on the EDT, and the user will just have to wear any unresponsiveness.
package datatable.utils;
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.SQLException;
abstract public class MySqlConnection {
     public static final String URL = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/test";
     public static final String USERNAME = "keith";//case sensitive
     private static final String PASSWORD = "chewie00";//case sensitive
     private static final Connection theConnection;
     static {
          String driverClassName = "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver";
          try {
               Class.forName(driverClassName);
               theConnection = DriverManager.getConnection(URL, USERNAME, PASSWORD);
          } catch (Exception e) {
               throw new DAOException("Failed to register JDBC driver class \""+driverClassName+"\"", e);
     public static Connection get() {
          return(theConnection);
}Is there a better solution short of c3po? Which I played with, but couldn't work out how to configure.
Thanx guys (and uj),
keith.