A JDBC RowSet object holds tabular data in a way that makes it more flexible
and easier to use than a result set. Sun Microsystems has defined five RowSet
interfaces for some of the more popular uses of a RowSet object, and the Java
Community Process has produced standard reference implementations for these
five RowSet interfaces. In this tutorial you will learn how easy it is to use these
reference implementations, which together with the interfaces are part of the
Java™ 2 Platform, Standard Edition 5.0 (J2SE™ 5.0).
Sun provides the five versions of the RowSet interface and their implementations
as a convenience for developers. Developers are free write their own versions of
the javax.sql.RowSet interface, to extend the implementations of the five RowSet
interfaces, or to write their own implementations. However, many programmers will probably find that the standard reference implementations already fit their needs and will use them as is.
This chapter gives you an overview of the five RowSet interfaces, and the succeeding
chapters walk you through how to use each of the reference implementations.