6.

1 Connecting to MySQL Using the

JDBC DriverManager Interface
When you are using JDBC outside of an application server, the DriverManager class manages the
establishment of connections.
Specify to the DriverManager which JDBC drivers to try to make Connections with. The easiest way to
do this is to use Class.forName() on the class that implements the java.sql.Driver interface. With
MySQL Connector/J, the name of this class is com.mysql.jdbc.Driver. With this method, you could
use an external configuration file to supply the driver class name and driver parameters to use when
connecting to a database.
The following section of Java code shows how you might register MySQL Connector/J from
the main() method of your application. If testing this code, first read the installation section
at Chapter 3, Connector/J Installation, to make sure you have connector installed correctly and
the CLASSPATH set up. Also, ensure that MySQL is configured to accept external TCP/IP connections.
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.SQLException;

// Notice, do not import com.mysql.jdbc.*

// or you will have problems!

public class LoadDriver {

public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
// The newInstance() call is a work around for some
// broken Java implementations

Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver").newInstance();
} catch (Exception ex) {
// handle the error
}
}

After the driver has been registered with the DriverManager, you can obtain a Connection instance
that is connected to a particular database by calling DriverManager.getConnection():
Example 6.1 Connector/J: Obtaining a connection from the DriverManager
If you have not already done so, please review the portion of Section 6.1, Connecting to MySQL Using
the JDBC DriverManager Interface above before working with the example below.
This example shows how you can obtain a Connection instance from the DriverManager. There are a
few different signatures for the getConnection()method. Consult the API documentation that comes
with your JDK for more specific information on how to use them.
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.SQLException;

Connection conn = null;

...
try {
conn =
DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost/test?" +
"user=minty&password=greatsqldb");

// Do something with the Connection

...
} catch (SQLException ex) {
// handle any errors
System.out.println("SQLException: " + ex.getMessage());
System.out.println("SQLState: " + ex.getSQLState());
System.out.println("VendorError: " + ex.getErrorCode());

Once a Connection is established, it can be used to

create Statement and PreparedStatement objects, as well as retrieve metadata about the database.
This is explained in the following sections.