All Known Implementing Classes:
    SerialRef

SQL REF values are stored in a table that contains instances of a referenceable SQL structured type, and each REF value is a unique identifier for one instance in that table. An SQL REF value may be used in place of the SQL structured type it references, either as a column value in a table or an attribute value in a structured type.

Because an SQL REF value is a logical pointer to an SQL structured type, a Ref object is by default also a logical pointer. Thus, retrieving an SQL REF value as a Ref object does not materialize the attributes of the structured type on the client.

A Ref object can be stored in the database using the PreparedStatement.setRef method.

All methods on the Ref interface must be fully implemented if the JDBC driver supports the data type.

Also see:

Struct
since: 1.2 -

 public String getBaseTypeName() throws SQLException
Retrieves the fully-qualified SQL name of the SQL structured type that
this Ref object references.

 public Object getObject() throws SQLException
Retrieves the SQL structured type instance referenced by
this Ref object. If the connection's type map has an entry
for the structured type, the instance will be custom mapped to
the Java class indicated in the type map. Otherwise, the
structured type instance will be mapped to a Struct object.

 public Object getObject(Map map) throws SQLException
Retrieves the referenced object and maps it to a Java type
using the given type map.

 public  void setObject(Object value) throws SQLException
Sets the structured type value that this Ref
object references to the given instance of Object.
The driver converts this to an SQL structured type when it
sends it to the database.