What does the line Class.forName("oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver"); actually do?

[Mark Scheid]

What does the line -

Class.forName("oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver");

Actually do in the program? A snippet of my code follows.

*
*
*

public static void main(String[] args) {
try{

Class.forName("oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver");

String serverName = "oramwt1";
String portNumber = "4521";
String sid = "xxxxxxxxxxxxx";
String url = "jdbc: oracle:thin:@" + serverName + ":" + portNumber + ":" + sid;
String username = "xxx";
String password = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";

Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(url, username, password);
*
*
*

I appreciate the help and look forward to hearing from you.

Aelf

[Paul Sturrock]

All JDBC Drivers are required to have a static code block that registers them with the DriverManager. Forcing the classloader to load the class will cause this code to run.

[Campbell Ritchie]

And welcome to the Ranch

[Ravi Kiran Va]

All JDBC Drivers are required to have a static code block that registers them with the DriverManager.

You mean to say that this thing :

static 
{
Class.forName("some data base driver");
}

[Paul Sturrock]

No.

[Ravi Kiran Va]

NO

so only this thing is sufficient

Class.forName("oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver");

and this piece of line of code is static method which will be responsible to establish the connection with the database. is this thing you ere refering .

I am asking because we generally use DataSource to get connections , but the above is a standard interview question . Thanks .

[Paul Sturrock]

No, that method returns the Class object associated with the class of that name. To do this the class will have to be loaded at which point the static block in the Driver will be called.