ORA-00903: invalid table name on PreparedStatement

Question

I have a method that will execute a query with a list of QueryParameters for the prepared statement. The HelperConnection and QueryParameter are just small java beans and should be self-explanatory based on the get s you see here. I'm try to do a select * from dual using, instead a select * from ? where the QueryParameter is a STRING type and the value is dual . However, I'm getting a java.sql.SQLSyntaxErrorException: ORA-00903: invalid table name error. My code and output are below. What's up?

public static ResultSet executeQuery(HelperConnection helperConnection, String query, QueryParameter... params) throws SQLException {
  System.out.println("The connection is: " + helperConnection.getJdbcURL());
  System.out.println("The query is: " + query);
  if (params.length > 0) {
    System.out.println("The QueryParameters are:");
    System.out.println("\t" + StringHelper.splitBy(StringHelper.newline + "\t", params));
  }
  Connection conn = helperConnection.createOracleConnection();
  PreparedStatement pstmt = conn.prepareStatement(query);
  for (int i = 1; i <= params.length; i++) {
    QueryParameter param = params[i - 1];
    switch (param.getType()) {
      //Other cases here
      case QueryParameter.STRING:
        pstmt.setString(i, param.getValue());
        break;
    }
  }

  ResultSet rs = pstmt.executeQuery();
  conn.commit();
  return rs;
}

Output:

The connection is: //.....My connection
The query is: select * from ?
The QueryParameters are:
    String - dual

Answer 1

I believe that PreparedStatement parameters are only for values - not for parts of the SQL query such as tables. There may be some databases which support what you're trying to achieve, but I don't believe Oracle is one of them. You'll need to include the table name directly - and cautiously, of course.