For instance, you have a number or double typed column in a database table, and you want to get the precision and the scale of that column. Here is an example for you.

package org.kodejava.jdbc;

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.ResultSetMetaData;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.sql.Statement;

public class ScaleAndPrecisionExample {
    private static final String URL = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/kodejava";
    private static final String USERNAME = "kodejava";
    private static final String PASSWORD = "s3cr*t";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try (Connection connection =
                     DriverManager.getConnection(URL, USERNAME, PASSWORD)) {

            String query = "SELECT id, quantity, price FROM purchase_order_detail";
            Statement statement = connection.createStatement();
            ResultSet resultSet = statement.executeQuery(query);

            ResultSetMetaData metadata = resultSet.getMetaData();
            int precision = metadata.getPrecision(3);
            int scale = metadata.getScale(3);

            System.out.println("Precision: " + precision);
            System.out.println("Scale    : " + scale);
        } catch (SQLException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

The result:

Precision: 10
Scale    : 2

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
    <artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
    <version>8.1.0</version>
</dependency>