There're different types of ResultSet behaviors implemented by Javasoft. And here the list of different behaviors available for ResultSet object

  1. Forward only ResultSet
  2. Scroll insensitive ResultSet
  3. Scroll sensitive ResultSet

1. Forward only ResultSet

A Java application will be able to move the current row position of ResultSet only in the forward direction by using resultSet.next() method, in case of forward only ResultSet.

By default, a forward only ResultSet will be opened and the Java application is not allowed to use the methods last(), first(), previous(), absolute(rowNo) on forward only result sets. These operations can be performed on the scrollable result sets (the next two types)

2. Scroll insensitive ResultSet

Scroll insensitive ResultSet will allow programmers to use last(), first(), previous(), absolute(rowNo) methods. Scroll insensitive result set can be created by passing extra parameters to createStatement method. Scroll insensitive resultset is not sensitive to the changes that are made by another application after opening the ResultSet. Observe below program

ScrollInSensitiveResultSetDemo.java

/**
 * A demo class to explain scroll sensitive resultset
 * @author Santhosh Reddy Mandadi
 * @since 19-Jun-2012
 * @version 1.0
 */

import java.sql.*;

public class ScrollInSensitiveResultSetDemo
{
 public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
 {
  Class.forName("oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver");
  Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:oracle:@localhost:1521:xe","scott","tiger");
  String vsql;
  vsql = "SELECT * FROM PRODUCTS";
  Statement statement = connection.createStatement(ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_INSENSITIVE, ResultSet.CONCUR_READ_ONLY);
  ResultSet resultSet = statement.executeQuery(vsql);
  System.out.println("Current row: "+resultSet.getRow());
  resultSet.absolute(5);
  System.out.println("Current row: "+resultSet.getRow());
  System.out.println("Updating the current 5th row data in DB directly...");
  //This is just to wait the control until we finish the update manually
  System.in.read();System.in.read();
  resultSet.refreshRow();
  System.out.println("**************************************");
 }
}
The above program will create a scroll insensitive resultSet when statement.executeQuery() is executed. During the above program execution, we're moving to the 5th record directly without invoking resultSet.next() method 5 times (i.e.; this is the case for forward only result sets). And the control will be waited for sometime... just update 5th row record in DB manually by you and hit enter after committing your changes in the DB. When you hit enter, program will execute resultSet.refreshRow() which will throw an exception indicating that the insensitive result set will not be able to pickup the data freshly from the database. This is possible with scroll sensitive result set.

3. Scroll sensitive ResultSet

Scroll sensitive result sets behavior is exactly similar to the scroll insensitive result sets and with an additional functionality of being able to refresh the resultset data that has been updated in the DB by other applications. We should pass ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_SENSITIVE parameter in place of ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_INSENSITIVE in order to create a scroll sensitive result set.

The above program will not raise an error while executing the refreshRow() method if we use scroll sensitive result set.