java - How to get all table names from a database?

Question

I'd like to retrieve all table names from a database schema, and, if possible, get all table starting with a specified prefix.

I tried using JDBC's connection.getMetaData().getTables() but it didn't work at all.

Connection jdbcConnection = DriverManager.getConnection("", "", "");
DatabaseMetaData m = jdbcConnection.getMetaData();
ResultSet tables = m.getTables(jdbcConnection.getCatalog(), null, "TAB_%", null);
for (int i = 0; i < tables.getMetaData().getColumnCount(); i++) {
   System.out.println("table = " + tables.getMetaData().getTableName(i));
}

Could someone help me on this?

Answer 1

You need to iterate over your ResultSet calling next().

This is an example from java2s.com:

DatabaseMetaData md = conn.getMetaData();
ResultSet rs = md.getTables(null, null, "%", null);
while (rs.next()) {
  System.out.println(rs.getString(3));
}

Column 3 is the TABLE_NAME (see documentation of DatabaseMetaData::getTables).