Java Database Connectivity: No suitable driver

Question

Hello,
for school I have to make a program that reads from a database and puts the data in an XML file.
I'm using Corel Paradox 10 for the database. I've configured the ODBC driver correctly as far as I can tell, but when I start the program it keeps saying:
SQL Exception:
SQL state: 08001
message: no suitable driver
vendor: 0
The following is the way I configured the driver in corel's BDE administrator:
type Microsoft Paradox Driver (*.db)
ODBC DSN ParadoxDump
There's more settings, but I doubt that that can have anything to do with it, it's mostly numbers and the username.
Now with the datasources (ODBC) in the windows configuration I have; with both the file-, system-, and the user-DSN the driver from Microsoft for Paradox, all named ParadoxDump, the file being in the directory where the tables are located, the complete filename is ParadoxDump.dsn.
This the section of my code that deals with the connection:
public class DumpUtility
     public static void main(String args[])
          try
               Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:odbc:ParadoxDump");
               Statement statement = connection.createStatement();
Does anyone have any idea why Java can't find the driver, or why the driver is not suitable? If so, does anyone know a away to solve my problem? Whether that be code, reconfiguring the drivers or where I can find a suitable driver and how to configue it if my solution really can't work?

Answer 1

Looks to me like you forgot to load the driver class. You need to load the driver explicitly, usually using Class.forName("driver.class.here") - that causes the class to register itself with the DriverManager. Then when you call getConnection it uses the URL string (in this case, "jdbc:odbc:ParadoxDump") to search through all the loaded drivers looking for one that recognizes that URL. That's how it knows which driver to use. With no driver loaded, the DriverManager class can't match that URL to a registered driver and that's what it's telling you.
--PF