8.1 CallableStatement Overview

A CallableStatement object provides a way to call stored procedures in a standard way for all DBMSs. A stored procedure is stored in a database; the call to the stored procedure is what a CallableStatement object contains. This call is written in an escape syntax that may take one of two forms: one form with a result parameter, and the other without one. A result parameter, a kind of OUT parameter, is the return value for the stored procedure. Both forms may have a variable number of parameters used for input (IN parameters), output (OUT parameters), or both (INOUT parameters). A question mark serves as a placeholder for a parameter.

The syntax for invoking a stored procedure using the JDBC API is shown here. Note that the square brackets indicate that what is between them is optional; they are not themselves part of the syntax.
{call procedure_name[(?, ?, ...)]}
The syntax for a procedure that returns a result parameter is:
{? = call procedure_name[(?, ?, ...)]}
The syntax for a stored procedure with no parameters would looks this:
{call procedure_name}
Normally, anyone creating a CallableStatement object would already know that the DBMS being used supports stored procedures and what those procedures are. If one needed to check, however, various DatabaseMetaData methods will supply such information. For instance, the method supportsStoredProcedures will return true if the DBMS supports stored procedure calls, and the method getProcedures will return a description of the stored procedures available.

CallableStatement inherits Statement methods, which deal with SQL statements in general, and it also inherits PreparedStatement methods, which deal with IN parameters. All of the methods defined in CallableStatement deal with OUT parameters>OUT parameters or the output aspect of INOUT parameters: registering the JDBC types of the OUT parameters, retrieving values from them, or checking whether a returned value was JDBC NULL. Whereas the getter methods defined in ResultSet (getString, getLong, and so on) retrieve values from a result set, the getter methods in CallableStatement retrieve values from the OUT parameters and/or return value of a stored procedure.