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Trail: JDBC(TM) Database Access
Lesson: JDBC Basics

## Establishing a Connection

> The first thing you need to do is establish a connection with the DBMS you want to use. This involves two steps: (1) loading the driver and (2) making the connection.

### Loading Drivers

> Loading the driver or drivers you want to use is very simple and involves just one line of code. If, for example, you want to use the JDBC-ODBC Bridge driver, the following code will load it:

> >     Class.forName("sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver");

> Your driver documentation will give you the class name to use. For instance, if the class name is `jdbc.DriverXYZ` , you would load the driver with the following line of code:

> >     Class.forName("jdbc.DriverXYZ");

> You do not need to create an instance of a driver and register it with the `DriverManager` because calling `Class.forName` will do that for you automatically. If you were to create your own instance, you would be creating an unnecessary duplicate, but it would do no harm.

> When you have loaded a driver, it is available for making a connection with a DBMS.

### Making the Connection

> The second step in establishing a connection is to have the appropriate driver connect to the DBMS. The following line of code illustrates the general idea:

> >     Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(url,
> >                          "myLogin", "myPassword");

> This step is also simple, with the hardest thing being what to supply for `url` . If you are using the JDBC-ODBC Bridge driver, the JDBC URL will start with `jdbc:odbc:` . The rest of the URL is generally your data source name or database system. So, if you are using ODBC to access an ODBC data source called "`Fred,` " for example, your JDBC URL could be `jdbc:odbc:Fred` . In place of "`myLogin` " you put the name you use to log in to the DBMS; in place of "`myPassword` " you put your password for the DBMS. So if you log in to your DBMS with a login name of "`Fernanda` " and a password of "`J8,` " just these two lines of code will establish a connection:

> >     String url = "jdbc:odbc:Fred";
> >     Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(url, "Fernanda", "J8");

> If you are using a JDBC driver developed by a third party, the documentation will tell you what subprotocol to use, that is, what to put after `jdbc:` in the JDBC URL. For example, if the driver developer has registered the name acme as the subprotocol, the first and second parts of the JDBC URL will be `jdbc:acme:` . The driver documentation will also give you guidelines for the rest of the JDBC URL. This last part of the JDBC URL supplies information for identifying the data source.

> If one of the drivers you loaded recognizes the JDBC URL supplied to the method `DriverManager.getConnection` , that driver will establish a connection to the DBMS specified in the JDBC URL. The `DriverManager` class, true to its name, manages all of the details of establishing the connection for you behind the scenes. Unless you are writing a driver, you will probably never use any of the methods in the interface `Driver` , and the only `DriverManager` method you really need to know is `DriverManager.getConnection` .

> The connection returned by the method `DriverManager.getConnection` is an open connection you can use to create JDBC statements that pass your SQL statements to the DBMS. In the previous example, `con` is an open connection, and we will use it in the examples that follow.

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