Controlling Database Connections

Using DataSource

Spring obtains a connection to the database through a DataSource. A DataSource is part of the JDBC specification and is a generalized connection factory. It lets a container or a framework hide connection pooling and transaction management issues from the application code. As a developer, you need not know details about how to connect to the database. That is the responsibility of the administrator who sets up the datasource. You most likely fill both roles as you develop and test code, but you do not necessarily have to know how the production data source is configured.

When you use Spring’s JDBC layer, you can obtain a data source from JNDI, or you can configure your own with a connection pool implementation provided by a third party. Traditional choices are Apache Commons DBCP and C3P0 with bean-style DataSource classes; for a modern JDBC connection pool, consider HikariCP with its builder-style API instead.

You should use the DriverManagerDataSource and SimpleDriverDataSource classes (as included in the Spring distribution) only for testing purposes! Those variants do not provide pooling and perform poorly when multiple requests for a connection are made.

The following section uses Spring’s DriverManagerDataSource implementation. Several other DataSource variants are covered later.

To configure a DriverManagerDataSource:

  1. Obtain a connection with DriverManagerDataSource as you typically obtain a JDBC connection.

  2. Specify the fully qualified class name of the JDBC driver so that the DriverManager can load the driver class.

  3. Provide a URL that varies between JDBC drivers. (See the documentation for your driver for the correct value.)

  4. Provide a username and a password to connect to the database.

The following example shows how to configure a DriverManagerDataSource in Java:

  • Java

  • Kotlin

DriverManagerDataSource dataSource = new DriverManagerDataSource();
dataSource.setDriverClassName("org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver");
dataSource.setUrl("jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost:");
dataSource.setUsername("sa");
dataSource.setPassword("");
val dataSource = DriverManagerDataSource().apply {
	setDriverClassName("org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver")
	url = "jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost:"
	username = "sa"
	password = ""
}

The following example shows the corresponding XML configuration:

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
	<property name="driverClassName" value="${jdbc.driverClassName}"/>
	<property name="url" value="${jdbc.url}"/>
	<property name="username" value="${jdbc.username}"/>
	<property name="password" value="${jdbc.password}"/>
</bean>

<context:property-placeholder location="jdbc.properties"/>

The next two examples show the basic connectivity and configuration for DBCP and C3P0. To learn about more options that help control the pooling features, see the product documentation for the respective connection pooling implementations.

The following example shows DBCP configuration:

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">
	<property name="driverClassName" value="${jdbc.driverClassName}"/>
	<property name="url" value="${jdbc.url}"/>
	<property name="username" value="${jdbc.username}"/>
	<property name="password" value="${jdbc.password}"/>
</bean>

<context:property-placeholder location="jdbc.properties"/>

The following example shows C3P0 configuration:

<bean id="dataSource" class="com.mchange.v2.c3p0.ComboPooledDataSource" destroy-method="close">
	<property name="driverClass" value="${jdbc.driverClassName}"/>
	<property name="jdbcUrl" value="${jdbc.url}"/>
	<property name="user" value="${jdbc.username}"/>
	<property name="password" value="${jdbc.password}"/>
</bean>

<context:property-placeholder location="jdbc.properties"/>

Using DataSourceUtils

The DataSourceUtils class is a convenient and powerful helper class that provides static methods to obtain connections from JNDI and close connections if necessary. It supports a thread-bound JDBC Connection with DataSourceTransactionManager but also with JtaTransactionManager and JpaTransactionManager.

Note that JdbcTemplate implies DataSourceUtils connection access, using it behind every JDBC operation, implicitly participating in an ongoing transaction.

Implementing SmartDataSource

The SmartDataSource interface should be implemented by classes that can provide a connection to a relational database. It extends the DataSource interface to let classes that use it query whether the connection should be closed after a given operation. This usage is efficient when you know that you need to reuse a connection.

Extending AbstractDataSource

AbstractDataSource is an abstract base class for Spring’s DataSource implementations. It implements code that is common to all DataSource implementations. You should extend the AbstractDataSource class if you write your own DataSource implementation.

Using SingleConnectionDataSource

The SingleConnectionDataSource class is an implementation of the SmartDataSource interface that wraps a single Connection that is not closed after each use. This is not multi-threading capable.

If any client code calls close on the assumption of a pooled connection (as when using persistence tools), you should set the suppressClose property to true. This setting returns a close-suppressing proxy that wraps the physical connection. Note that you can no longer cast this to a native Oracle Connection or a similar object.

SingleConnectionDataSource is primarily a test class. It typically enables easy testing of code outside an application server, in conjunction with a simple JNDI environment. In contrast to DriverManagerDataSource, it reuses the same connection all the time, avoiding excessive creation of physical connections.

Using DriverManagerDataSource

The DriverManagerDataSource class is an implementation of the standard DataSource interface that configures a plain JDBC driver through bean properties and returns a new Connection every time.

This implementation is useful for test and stand-alone environments outside of a Jakarta EE container, either as a DataSource bean in a Spring IoC container or in conjunction with a simple JNDI environment. Pool-assuming Connection.close() calls close the connection, so any DataSource-aware persistence code should work. However, using JavaBean-style connection pools (such as commons-dbcp) is so easy, even in a test environment, that it is almost always preferable to use such a connection pool over DriverManagerDataSource.

Using TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy

TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy is a proxy for a target DataSource. The proxy wraps that target DataSource to add awareness of Spring-managed transactions. In this respect, it is similar to a transactional JNDI DataSource, as provided by a Jakarta EE server.

It is rarely desirable to use this class, except when already existing code must be called and passed a standard JDBC DataSource interface implementation. In this case, you can still have this code be usable and, at the same time, have this code participating in Spring managed transactions. It is generally preferable to write your own new code by using the higher level abstractions for resource management, such as JdbcTemplate or DataSourceUtils.

See the TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy javadoc for more details.

Using DataSourceTransactionManager / JdbcTransactionManager

The DataSourceTransactionManager class is a PlatformTransactionManager implementation for a single JDBC DataSource. It binds a JDBC Connection from the specified DataSource to the currently executing thread, potentially allowing for one thread-bound Connection per DataSource.

Application code is required to retrieve the JDBC Connection through DataSourceUtils.getConnection(DataSource) instead of Java EE’s standard DataSource.getConnection. It throws unchecked org.springframework.dao exceptions instead of checked SQLExceptions. All framework classes (such as JdbcTemplate) use this strategy implicitly. If not used with a transaction manager, the lookup strategy behaves exactly like DataSource.getConnection and can therefore be used in any case.

The DataSourceTransactionManager class supports savepoints (PROPAGATION_NESTED), custom isolation levels, and timeouts that get applied as appropriate JDBC statement query timeouts. To support the latter, application code must either use JdbcTemplate or call the DataSourceUtils.applyTransactionTimeout(..) method for each created statement.

You can use DataSourceTransactionManager instead of JtaTransactionManager in the single-resource case, as it does not require the container to support a JTA transaction coordinator. Switching between these transaction managers is just a matter of configuration, provided you stick to the required connection lookup pattern. Note that JTA does not support savepoints or custom isolation levels and has a different timeout mechanism but otherwise exposes similar behavior in terms of JDBC resources and JDBC commit/rollback management.

As of 5.3, Spring provides an extended JdbcTransactionManager variant which adds exception translation capabilities on commit/rollback (aligned with JdbcTemplate). Where DataSourceTransactionManager will only ever throw TransactionSystemException (analogous to JTA), JdbcTransactionManager translates database locking failures etc to corresponding DataAccessException subclasses. Note that application code needs to be prepared for such exceptions, not exclusively expecting TransactionSystemException. In scenarios where that is the case, JdbcTransactionManager is the recommended choice.

In terms of exception behavior, JdbcTransactionManager is roughly equivalent to JpaTransactionManager and also to R2dbcTransactionManager, serving as an immediate companion/replacement for each other. DataSourceTransactionManager on the other hand is equivalent to JtaTransactionManager and can serve as a direct replacement there.