JDBC driver

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "JDBC driver" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. Please help improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details. (December 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article is in list format but may read better as prose. You can help by converting this article, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (July 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A JDBC driver is a software component enabling a Java application to interact with a database.^[1] JDBC drivers are analogous to ODBC drivers, ADO.NET data providers, and OLE DB providers.

To connect with individual databases, JDBC (the Java Database Connectivity API) requires drivers for each database. The JDBC driver gives out the connection to the database and implements the protocol for transferring the query and result between client and database.

JDBC technology drivers fit into one of four categories.^[2]

1. JDBC-ODBC bridge
2. Native-API driver
3. Network-Protocol driver (Middleware driver)
4. Database-Protocol driver (Pure Java driver) or thin driver.