View content of H2 or HSQLDB in-memory database

Question

Is there a way to browse the content of an H2 or an HSQLDB in-memory database for viewing? For example, during a debugging session with Hibernate in order to check when the flush is executed; or to make sure the script that instantiates the DB gives the expected result.

Does it exist an addon or a library that you can embed with your code in order to allow this?

Please, mention which one you're talking about (H2 or HSQLDB) in case you have an answer specific to one of them.

Answer 1

You can run H2 web server within your application that will access the same in-memory database. You can also access the H2 running in server mode using any generic JDBC client like SquirrelSQL.

UPDATE:

Server webServer = Server.createWebServer("-web,-webAllowOthers,true,-webPort,8082").start();
Server server = Server.createTcpServer("-tcp,-tcpAllowOthers,true,-tcpPort,9092").start();

Now you can connect to your database via jdbc:h2:mem:foo_db URL within the same process or browse the foo_db database using localhost:8082. Remember to close both servers. See also: H2 database in memory mode cannot be accessed by Console.

You can also use Spring:

<bean id="h2Server" class="org.h2.tools.Server" factory-method="createTcpServer" init-method="start" destroy-method="stop" depends-on="h2WebServer">
    <constructor-arg value="-tcp,-tcpAllowOthers,true,-tcpPort,9092"/>
</bean>
<bean id="h2WebServer" class="org.h2.tools.Server" factory-method="createWebServer" init-method="start" destroy-method="stop">
    <constructor-arg value="-web,-webAllowOthers,true,-webPort,8082"/>
</bean>

<bean id="dataSource" class="com.mchange.v2.c3p0.ComboPooledDataSource" destroy-method="close" depends-on="h2Server">
    <property name="driverClass" value="org.h2.Driver"/>
    <property name="jdbcUrl" value="jdbc:h2:mem:foo_db"/>
</bean>

BTW you should only depend on assertions and not on manual peeking the database contents. Use this only for troubleshooting.

N.B. if you use Spring test framework you won't see changes made by a running transaction and this transaction will be rolled back immediately after the test.

Answer 2

For H2, you can start a web server within your code during a debugging session if you have a database connection object. You could add this line to your code, or as a 'watch expression' (dynamically):

org.h2.tools.Server.startWebServer(conn);

The server tool will start a web browser locally that allows you to access the database.

Answer 3

In H2, what works for me is:

I code, starting the server like:

server = Server.createTcpServer().start();

That starts the server on localhost port 9092.

Then, in code, establish a DB connection on the following JDBC URL:

jdbc:h2:tcp://localhost:9092/mem:test;DB_CLOSE_DELAY=-1;MODE=MySQL

While debugging, as a client to inspect the DB I use the one provided by H2, which is good enough, to launch it you just need to launch the following java main separately

org.h2.tools.Console

This will start a web server with an app on 8082, launch a browser on localhost:8082

And then you can enter the previous URL to see the DB

Answer 4

With HSQLDB, you have several built-in options.

There are two GUI database managers and a command line interface to the database. The classes for these are:

org.hsqldb.util.DatabaseManager
org.hsqldb.util.DatabaseManagerSwing
org.hsqldb.cmdline.SqlTool

You can start one of the above from your application and access the in-memory databases.

An example with JBoss is given here:

http://docs.jboss.org/jbpm/v3.2/userguide/html/ch07s03.html

You can also start a server with your application, pointing it to an in-memory database.

org.hsqldb.Server

Answer 5

You can expose it as a JMX feature, startable via JConsole:

@ManagedResource
@Named
public class DbManager {

    @ManagedOperation(description = "Start HSQL DatabaseManagerSwing.")
    public void dbManager() {
        String[] args = {"--url", "jdbc:hsqldb:mem:embeddedDataSource", "--noexit"};
        DatabaseManagerSwing.main(args);
    }
}

XML context:

<context:component-scan base-package="your.package.root" scoped-proxy="targetClass"/>
<context:annotation-config />
<context:mbean-server />
<context:mbean-export />

Answer 6

This is a Play 2 controller to initialize the H2 TCP and Web servers:

package controllers;

import org.h2.tools.Server;
import play.mvc.Controller;
import play.mvc.Result;

import java.sql.SQLException;

/**
 * Play 2 controller to initialize H2 TCP Server and H2 Web Console Server.
 *
 * Once it's initialized, you can connect with a JDBC client with
 * the URL `jdbc:h2:tcp://127.0.1.1:9092/mem:DBNAME`,
 * or can be accessed with the web console at `http://localhost:8082`,
 * and the URL JDBC `jdbc:h2:mem:DBNAME`.
 *
 * @author Mariano Ruiz <mrsarm@gmail.com>
 */
public class H2ServerController extends Controller {

    private static Server h2Server = null;
    private static Server h2WebServer = null;

    public static synchronized Result debugH2() throws SQLException {
        if (h2Server == null) {
            h2Server = Server.createTcpServer("-tcp", "-tcpAllowOthers", "-tcpPort", "9092");
            h2Server.start();
            h2WebServer = Server.createWebServer("-web","-webAllowOthers","-webPort","8082");
            h2WebServer.start();
            return ok("H2 TCP/Web servers initialized");
        } else {
            return ok("H2 TCP/Web servers already initialized");
        }
    }
}

Answer 7

For HSQLDB, The following worked for me:

DatabaseManager.threadedDBM();

And this brought up the GUI with my tables and data.

I also tried the Swing version, but it only had a main, and I was unsure of the arguments to pass. If anyone knows, please post here.

Just because I searched for hours for the right database name: The name of the database is the name of your datasource. So try with URL jdbc:hsqldb:mem:dataSource if you have a data source bean with id=dataSource. If this does not work, try testdb which is the default.

Answer 8

I've a problem with H2 version 1.4.190 remote connection to inMemory (as well as in file) with Connection is broken: "unexpected status 16843008" until do not downgrade to 1.3.176. See Grails accessing H2 TCP server hangs

Answer 9

I don't know why is it working fine at yours machines, but I had to spend a day in order to get it is working.

The server works with Intellij Idea U via url "jdbc:h2:tcp://localhost:9092/~/default".

"localhost:8082" in the browser alse works fine.

I added this into the mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close" depends-on="h2Server">
    <property name="driverClassName" value="org.h2.Driver"/>
    <property name="url" value="jdbc:h2:tcp://localhost:9092/~/default"/>
    <property name="username" value="sa"/>
    <property name="password" value=""/>
</bean>

<bean id="h2Server" class="org.h2.tools.Server" factory-method="createTcpServer" init-method="start" destroy-method="stop" depends-on="h2WebServer">
    <constructor-arg>
        <array>
            <value>-tcp</value>
            <value>-tcpAllowOthers</value>
            <value>-tcpPort</value>
            <value>9092</value>
        </array>
    </constructor-arg>
</bean>

<bean id="h2WebServer" class="org.h2.tools.Server" factory-method="createWebServer" init-method="start" destroy-method="stop">
    <constructor-arg>
        <array>
            <value>-web</value>
            <value>-webAllowOthers</value>
            <value>-webPort</value>
            <value>8082</value>
        </array>
    </constructor-arg>
</bean>

Answer 10

This is more a comment to previous Thomas Mueller's post rather than an answer, but haven't got enough reputation for it. Another way of getting the connection if you are Spring JDBC Template is using the following:

jdbcTemplate.getDataSource().getConnection();

So on debug mode if you add to the "Expressions" view in Eclipse it will open the browser showing you the H2 Console:

org.h2.tools.Server.startWebServer(jdbcTemplate.getDataSource().getConnection());

Eclipse Expressions View

H2 Console