How to Store and Manage SQL Statements More Effectively With Java

NOTE: use java.util.Properties#loadFromXML is easier!

If you work with plain Java JDBC without any external libraries, you will need to manage your own SQL statements. Unfortunately Java String does not support muti-lines construct, and you have to use many "quotes" + "concatenation" and makes the SQL very hard to read and manage. This makes it hard to maintain and test (try to copy a SQL from Java code into your SQL client). It would be so nice to keep the entire SQL block of text intact without these Java noise.

Here is a quick solution. Store your SQL queries in XML inside CDATA:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<sqlMap>
    <sqls>
        <entry>
            <key>getUser</key>
            <value><![CDATA[
SELECT *
FROM USERS
WHERE ID = ?
            ]]></value>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <key>getSpecialCodeByUserId</key>
            <value><![CDATA[
SELECT u.EMAIL, p.ID as PROFILEID, p.SPECIALCODE, a.MANAGERID
FROM USERS u
  LEFT JOIN PROFILE p ON p.USERID = u.ID
  LEFT JOIN ACCOUNT a ON a.PROFILEID = p.ID
WHERE u.ID = ?  ]]></value>
        </entry>  </sqls>
</sqlMap>

Now you just need to read it. You can do this quickly with built-in JAXB

import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

@XmlRootElement
public class SqlMap {
    Map<String, String> sqls = new HashMap<>();

    public Map<String, String> getSqls() {
        return sqls;
    }

    public void setSqls(Map<String, String> sqls) {
        this.sqls = sqls;
    }

    public String getSql(String name) {
        return sqls.get(name);
    }

    public static SqlMap load(String name) throws Exception {
        String xml = Utils.loadString(name);
        SqlMap sqlMap = unmarshallXML(xml );
        return sqlMap;
    }
}