Class.forName()

[Praveen palukuri]

hi,
any one can explain the exact need of Class.forName().
I know that i'll load jdbc driver if it is not loaded earlier. Other than this, is there any thing to say.

Thank you.

[pradeep jaladi]

Hi,


You can get detail description of class.forName(...) in Sun offical Documentation .

class.forName(....) is used to Load the specified class in to JVM.
Java Sun Documentation

[stu derby]

Originally posted by Praveen palukuri:
hi,
any one can explain the exact need of Class.forName().
I know that i'll load jdbc driver if it is not loaded earlier. Other than this, is there any thing to say.

Thank you.

That's pretty much all there is to it.

When a JDBC driver is loaded by Class.forName(), a static initialization block will cause it to register itself with DriverManager. After that, even if the class is explicitly unloaded, the driver is still available via the DriveManager.getConnection() method (which would force reloading of the class).

Class.forName() is used rather than the normal Java compilation to allow for programs to be compiled and built that don't know at compile-time which database they will be used with, and therefore don't know which JDBC driver is required.

[Maximilian Xavier Stocker]

Dynamic class loading is nice. Whether you use it for JDBC or something else it really can make your application flexibly to load concrete implementations of known interfaces at run time.