JDBC - Get all Table names from OpenOffice Database

Question

long time lurker, first question time.

I tried searching for how to get all of the tables from a database created with OpenOffice using JDBC, and while I found answers that work for others, they do not work for me. The code itself actually returns something, but it returns something completely unexpected.

My code:

    try {
        DatabaseMetaData md = conn.getMetaData();
        rs = md.getTables(null, null, "%", null);

        while (rs.next()) {
            tableNames.add(rs.getString(3));
            System.out.println(rs.getString(3));
        }

    }
    catch (Exception e) {
        System.out.println("error in sendConnection()");
    }

And the output:

SYSTEM_ALIASES
SYSTEM_ALLTYPEINFO
SYSTEM_AUTHORIZATIONS
SYSTEM_BESTROWIDENTIFIER
SYSTEM_CACHEINFO
SYSTEM_CATALOGS
SYSTEM_CHECK_COLUMN_USAGE
SYSTEM_CHECK_CONSTRAINTS
SYSTEM_CHECK_ROUTINE_USAGE
SYSTEM_CHECK_TABLE_USAGE
SYSTEM_CLASSPRIVILEGES
SYSTEM_COLLATIONS
SYSTEM_COLUMNPRIVILEGES
SYSTEM_COLUMNS
SYSTEM_CROSSREFERENCE
SYSTEM_INDEXINFO
SYSTEM_PRIMARYKEYS
SYSTEM_PROCEDURECOLUMNS
SYSTEM_PROCEDURES
SYSTEM_PROPERTIES
SYSTEM_ROLE_AUTHORIZATION_DESCRIPTORS
SYSTEM_SCHEMAS
SYSTEM_SCHEMATA
SYSTEM_SEQUENCES
SYSTEM_SESSIONINFO
SYSTEM_SESSIONS
SYSTEM_SUPERTABLES
SYSTEM_SUPERTYPES
SYSTEM_TABLEPRIVILEGES
SYSTEM_TABLES
SYSTEM_TABLETYPES
SYSTEM_TABLE_CONSTRAINTS
SYSTEM_TEXTTABLES
SYSTEM_TRIGGERCOLUMNS
SYSTEM_TRIGGERS
SYSTEM_TYPEINFO
SYSTEM_UDTATTRIBUTES
SYSTEM_UDTS
SYSTEM_USAGE_PRIVILEGES
SYSTEM_USERS
SYSTEM_VERSIONCOLUMNS
SYSTEM_VIEWS
SYSTEM_VIEW_COLUMN_USAGE
SYSTEM_VIEW_ROUTINE_USAGE
SYSTEM_VIEW_TABLE_USAGE

What is being returned, and how can I work around or resolve this? Thank you in advance!

Edit: The Databases created buh OpenOffice appear to be Embedded Databases by default. This may be causing the problem. Going to try and convert it to something else and see what happens.

Answer 1

I found a way to fix this, in case others come across this problem as well. The problem was OpenOffice was saving the database as a base file, with hsqldb under it. You need to make it just a regular hsqldb.

I used both of these links as resources:

http://programmaremobile.blogspot.com/2009/01/java-and-openoffice-base-db-through.html

https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=65980

In short, you need to extract the .odb file, go into the directories and find the database directory holding 4 other files. Add a prefix to them and then access it like normal.

I am still getting the monstrosity of the SYSTEM_* tables, but now I am actually getting the tables I want as well. From there I think I can figure out how to just get those random tables.