How to get all the column names from a ResultSet using JDBC

You can get the name of a particular column using the getColumnName() method of the ResultSetMetadata interface.

This method accepts an integer value representing the index of a column and returns a String value representing the name of the specified column.

Let us create a table with name MyPlayers in MySQL database using CREATE statement as shown below −

CREATE TABLE MyPlayers(
   ID INT,
   First_Name VARCHAR(255),
   Last_Name VARCHAR(255),
   Date_Of_Birth date,
   Place_Of_Birth VARCHAR(255),
   Country VARCHAR(255),
   PRIMARY KEY (ID)
);

Now, we will insert 7 records in MyPlayers table using INSERT statements −

insert into MyPlayers values(1, 'Shikhar', 'Dhawan', DATE('1981-12-05'), 'Delhi', 'India');
insert into MyPlayers values(2, 'Jonathan', 'Trott', DATE('1981-04-22'), 'CapeTown', 'SouthAfrica');
insert into MyPlayers values(3, 'Kumara', 'Sangakkara', DATE('1977-10-27'), 'Matale', 'Srilanka');
insert into MyPlayers values(4, 'Virat', 'Kohli', DATE('1988-11-05'), 'Delhi', 'India');
insert into MyPlayers values(5, 'Rohit', 'Sharma', DATE('1987-04-30'), 'Nagpur', 'India');
insert into MyPlayers values(6, 'Ravindra', 'Jadeja', DATE('1988-12-06'), 'Nagpur', 'India');
insert into MyPlayers values(7, 'James', 'Anderson', DATE('1982-06-30'), 'Burnley', 'England');

Following JDBC program establishes connection with the database, retrieves the contents of the table named MyPlayers in to a ResultSet object, gets the column names of the table using the getColumnName() method and displays them.

Example

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.ResultSetMetaData;
import java.sql.Statement;
public class RS_AllColumnNames {
   public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {
      //Registering the Driver
      DriverManager.registerDriver(new com.mysql.jdbc.Driver());
      //Getting the connection
      String mysqlUrl = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/mydatabase";
      Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(mysqlUrl, "root", "password");
      System.out.println("Connection established......");
      //Creating a Statement object
      Statement stmt = con.createStatement();
      //Retrieving the data
      ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("select * from MyPlayers");
      //Retrieving the ResultSetMetadata object
      ResultSetMetaData rsMetaData = rs.getMetaData();
      System.out.println("List of column names in the current table: ");
      //Retrieving the list of column names
      int count = rsMetaData.getColumnCount();
      for(int i = 1; i<=count; i++) {
         System.out.println(rsMetaData.getColumnName(i));
      }
   }
}

Output

Connection established......
List of column names in the current table:
ID
First_Name
Last_Name
Date_Of_Birth
Place_Of_Birth
Country