An sql question about table names

Question

Is it possible to create a table with a certain name via programmatic manipulation using sql?
Here is my code, can you please tell me why it's not working, and if there is a way to make it work? I basicaly need to create tables with names corresponding to names in a vector.
public void files(){
    try {
            FileInputStream file = new FileInputStream("C:\\Documents and Settings\\Adham\\jbproject\\SeniorProject\\id.ser");
            ObjectInputStream input = new ObjectInputStream(file);
            val = (Vector)input.readObject();
            input.close();
      catch (java.io.IOException IOE) {
             IOE.printStackTrace();
      catch (ClassNotFoundException cnfe) {
             cnfe.printStackTrace();
  public void createtables()
  {     files();
        String dsn = "jdbc:odbc:etv";
        String dbUser = "Adham";
        String dbPass = "reqss";
        for (int i = 0; i<val.size(); i++){
        String s = val.elementAt(i).toString();
        try {
            Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(dsn, dbUser, dbPass);
            Statement stmt = con.createStatement();
            String sql = new String("CREATE TABLE "+s + "(Start INTEGER,"+ "End INTEGER,"+ "Channel VARCHAR(255),"+ "Title VARCHAR(255))");
            stmt.executeUpdate(sql);
            stmt.close();
            con.close();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
            return;
  }your help is greatly appreciated

Answer 1

It's not that you can't create a table at runtime. You can execute an UPDATE with CREATE TABLE in it.
I'm saying that the string you're passing in as the table name probably contains a lot more than just the name that you think it does. Print out that string before you execute the SQL and see what it has.
You're reading a serialized object stream. That has a lot more stuff in it than just the table name. I'm guessing that the SQL engine is seeing all that stuff and having a problem with it.
This code can create tables:
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DatabaseMetaData;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.ResultSetMetaData;
import java.sql.Statement;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
public class TableCreator
    public static final String DEFAULT_SQL  = "CREATE TABLE TEST(NAME TEXT(80))";
    public static final String DRIVER       = "sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver";
    public static final String DATABASE     = "jdbc:odbc:DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBQ=c:\\Edu\\Java\\Forum\\DataConnection.mdb";
    public static final String USERNAME     = "admin";
    public static final String PASSWORD     = "";
    public static void main(String [] args)
        try
            String tableCreationSQL = ((args.length > 0) ? args[0] : DEFAULT_SQL);
            String driver           = ((args.length > 1) ? args[1] : DRIVER);
            String url              = ((args.length > 2) ? args[2] : DATABASE);
            String username         = ((args.length > 3) ? args[3] : USERNAME);
            String password         = ((args.length > 4) ? args[4] : PASSWORD);
            Class.forName(driver);
            Connection connection   = DriverManager.getConnection(url, username, password);
            Statement statement     = connection.createStatement();
            statement.executeUpdate(tableCreationSQL);
            statement.close();
            connection.close();
        catch (ClassNotFoundException e)
            System.err.println("Couldn't load JDBC driver class");
            e.printStackTrace();
        catch (SQLException e)
            System.err.println("SQL state: " + e.getSQLState());
            System.err.println("SQL error: " + e.getErrorCode());
            e.printStackTrace();
        catch (Exception e)
            e.printStackTrace();
}Compile it and try it with your own database and creation SQL.
MOD