Re: JAVA/JDBC newbie question

I don't believe it is the same as having an import statement as you state
below.  Having the import statement only makes a package name space
available for access.  This does not load anything into the JVM at runtime.
Sinces the import doesn't actually load the class, the static initializer
will not have run and a connection to a given JDBC driver with the URL for
that driver will fail because the DriverManager will not be aware of the
Driver.


Regards,

Richard D. Dettinger
AS/400 Java Data Access Team

"TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why
WILL you say that I am mad?
The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. "

- Edgar Allan Poe
"The Tell-Tale Heart"




"Larry Meadors" <lmeadors@plumcreek.com>@midrange.com on 11/21/2000
09:51:58 AM

Please respond to JAVA400-L@midrange.com

Sent by:  owner-java400-l@midrange.com


To:   <JAVA400-L@midrange.com>
cc:
Subject:  Re: JAVA/JDBC newbie question



From the java docs, this "attempts to locate, load, and link the class or
interface."

If I read this correctly, this is the same as:
   import COM.ibm.db2.jdbc.app.DB2Driver;

The key difference as I see it is that you are importing a class
dynamically at runtime instead of statically at compile time. This make it
possible to load different drivers or classes "on-the-fly":

   Class.forName(myJDBCDriverNameHere);

The benefit is that you could theoretically write code to use the db2 or
oracle or mysql driver without hard-coding the specific driver.

Larry

>>> Tom_Tufankjian@hbltd.com 11/21/00 07:47AM >>>
I have seen the following code and would like to know what it does:

Class.forName("COM.ibm.db2.jdbc.app.DB2Driver");

The documentation says it "enables Java to find the driver classes for
handling JDBC objects."

Specifically, what does the "Class.forName"  do?


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