I am trying to figure out how you tell HSQLDB which database to work with. With MySQL for example, I'd enter:
use testbd;
Toe work only tables from "testdb".
When you start a HSQLDB session with the "HSQL Database Manager" shows all the schemas (databases). It then allows you to select a database to 'use'.
How can I just specify the database Testdb so my queries can look like:
SELECT * FROM NAMES;
instead of long-winded:
SELECT * FROM TESTDB.NAMES;
command? Also is there a different method to do that programaticly via JDBC, ODBC or Java?
The database is selected as part of the JDBC URL. You can not change that at runtime without creating a new connection.
But you are mixing up terminology anyway
SELECT * FROM TESTDB.NAMES
selects from a schema called testdb not from a "database" (MySQL doesn't distinguish between a database and a schema, that's probably why you mixed up the terminology as well)
The SQL standard defines two namespace levels: catalog and schema.
A fully qualified name is database_name.schema_name.object_name. You can only leave out parts from the beginning. So foo.bar references a table bar in the schema foo. As HSQLDB does not support more than one catalog per database (or actually: the current database is the "catalog") you can always leave out the catalog name when referencing a table.
See the manual for details:
http://hsqldb.org/doc/2.0/guide/databaseobjects-chapt.html#dbc_names_references
To avoid having to specify the table's schema, you can change the current schema using the set schema statement:
SET SCHEMA testdb;
This is also documented in the manual:
http://hsqldb.org/doc/2.0/guide/sessions-chapt.html#N10BBF