loading JDBC driver from a Jar (not in classpath)

[Andris Jekabsons]

How can one load a JDBC driver from a Jar file that is not in the classpath?
Currently the Jar's (with the db driver) location is indicated in the run script. However, the application should be deployed as a Jar file, so that the user could start it just by executing that Jar file. The problem is that the user could use any jdbc driver that could be located anywhere on the machine, so I cannot hardcode it, and have to ask the user to provide this information.
How can I load the driver after the user has given the Jar location and driver name (it is a Swing application).
Right now the driver is loaded and connection established by:

Class.forName( driverName );
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(...);

I was trying to use a URLClassLoader, but aparently am missing some step:

URL jarUrl = new URL( "jar:file:/" + jarLocation + "!/" );
URL[] urls = { jarUrl };
URLClassLoader jarClassLoader = new URLClassLoader( urls );
Class driverClass = jarClassLoader.loadClass( driverName );

Thanks for any hints.

[Andris Jekabsons]

Should have googled more precisely, as the solution was not far away.
As explained here:
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=300557&start=15&tstart=0
all I was missing was creating the driver instance:

URL jarUrl = new URL( "jar:file:/" + jarLocation + "!/" );
URL[] urls = { jarUrl };
URLClassLoader jarClassLoader = new URLClassLoader( urls );
Class driverClass = jarClassLoader.loadClass( driverName );
// the added code:
Driver driver = (Driver)driverClass.newInstance();
Properties props = new Properties();
props.setProperty( "user", dbUser );
props.setProperty( "password", dbPwd );
connection = driver.connect( dbUrl, props );

Now I just have to look more into the Driver.getPropertyInfo() for more ways to gathering connection information for various kinds of drivers.
[ April 12, 2006: Message edited by: Andris Jekabsons ]

[stu derby]

Thanks for posting the followup, I was curious...