Fre SQL database s/w

Mitch Connor

Anyone help me on this one.

In college we use sqlplus worksheet to connect to an oracle database to do our sql database stuff. We can also connect to the oracle database from java programs we create and run in college.

I want to get something similar working on my own laptop, so i can create, connect to and alter tables with java programs on my laptop. Can anyone reccomend the best solution to this (by best i mean simplest!)

Kingp35

Do you have to use an Oracle database on your laptop?

If not then I suggest you download MySQL and use that as your database because its free to download and quite easy to use in conjunction with java. You can also download GUI's that allow you to easliy alter tables and content etc in your database.

MySQL is available HERE. The GUI's are also available on that page. They are called "MySQL Administrator" and "MySQL Query Optimiser".

liamo

There are a number of free Database Servers. Probably the two best known are PostgreSQL and MySQL. (My preference is for PostgreSQL).

You haven't said what OS you have on your laptop so I'm guessing Windows. Both of the above have windows installers.

Regards,

Liam

bishopLEN

Presuming you have office installed, you could use Microsoft Access and then the JDBC connector using ODBCAD32. If you have office this is the easiest solution as nothing extra is needed.

Sposs

you can also now download a free copy of Ms Sql express http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

Mitch Connor

went with MySQL 5.0 and Administrator and Query Browser.

couldn't get them to work though, which i found odd.

I installed MySQL last week to my D drive cause my c has little space, when i installed admin and QB they ask me to select an instance, type in a user name and a password - none of which i have. I created an instance of the SQL database using MySql as part pf the installation procedure and i selected a root password - but none of these tally with the Admin or QB. Could this be because Admin and QB were installed to my C drive while MySQL was installed to the D?

Mitch Connor

can anyone tell me where i have gone horrible wrong on this.
Have uninstalled everything to start over....

1. Downloaded MySQL Community Edition - MySQL 5.0 GA
2. Downloaded MySQL Administrator
3. Downloaded MySQL Query Browser (all from the link given above)
4. Installed all to default location.
5. Went through all the steps of the Server Instance Configuration Wizard, creating the instance and assigning a root password.
6 Ran QueryBrowser and was asked to select a stored connection - there was none so.....
7. Added a new conection called Connection, with my name as a user name, a password entered and "localhost" as the host name.
8. Entered User name and password but was told i could not connect to specified instance: Access denied for user 'Tauren'@'localhost'(using password:YES)

Same type of issue when i try to run MySQL Administrator.

cousin_borat

Oracle have released a free version of their database which should suit your purposes. It's called Express edition and it's pretty small circa 100mb. I would recommend this for your purposes

Mitch Connor

cousin_borat wrote:

Oracle have released a free version of their database which should suit your purposes. It's called Express edition and it's pretty small circa 100mb. I would recommend this for your purposes

does that have a built in GUI or similar for doing all the create statements in?

bpmurray

Of course you could use the free, tiny, Derby (formerly IBM Informix Cloudscape) . It has a tiny footprint, and if you're doing JDBC development, it's great for testing. It doesn't even need a server process. It only takes up 2MB or so, and that includes the JDBC driver.

However, if you want to go the full client-server model, it also supports that.

See http://db.apache.org/derby/

I almost forgot - it also has an Eclipese plugin to help in development, as well as plugins for NetBeans and JBuilder.

secret_squirrel

Oracle, DB2, SQL Server and Sybase are all available as free developer versions.

A very very good DB/SQL Development GUI is Toadfree (for oracle).

Alternatively try Raptor by Oracle.