Connecting to SQL Server with JDBC

All you need is 3 jar files in your classpath

• Msbase.jar
• Msutil.jar
• Mssqlserver.jar

When you install the Microsoft drivers, by default, they go to the following folder:
c:\program files\Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Driver for JDBC

So, going by this, you can set your CLASSPATH the following way:

CLASSPATH=.;c:\program files\Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Driver for JDBC\lib\msbase.jar;c:\program files\Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Driver for JDBC\lib\msutil.jar;c:\program files\Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Driver for JDBC\lib\mssqlserver

Code to connect SQL Server

import java.*;
public class Connect{
private java.sql.Connection con = null;
private final String url = "jdbc:microsoft:sqlserver://";
private final String serverName= "localhost";
private final String portNumber = "1433";
private final String databaseName= "pubs";
private final String userName = "user";
private final String password = "password";
// Informs the driver to use server a side-cursor,
// which permits more than one active statement
// on a connection.
private final String selectMethod = "cursor";

// Constructor
public Connect(){}

private String getConnectionUrl(){
return url+serverName+":"+portNumber+";databaseName="+databaseName+";selectMethod="+selectMethod+";";
}

private java.sql.Connection getConnection(){
try{
Class.forName("com.microsoft.jdbc.sqlserver.SQLServerDriver");
con = java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(getConnectionUrl(),userName,password);
if(con!=null) System.out.println("Connection Successful!");
}catch(Exception e){
e.printStackTrace();
System.out.println("Error Trace in getConnection() : " + e.getMessage());
}
return con;
}

/*
Display the driver properties, database details
*/

public void displayDbProperties(){
java.sql.DatabaseMetaData dm = null;
java.sql.ResultSet rs = null;
try{
con= this.getConnection();
if(con!=null){
dm = con.getMetaData();
System.out.println("Driver Information");
System.out.println("\tDriver Name: "+ dm.getDriverName());
System.out.println("\tDriver Version: "+ dm.getDriverVersion ());
System.out.println("\nDatabase Information ");
System.out.println("\tDatabase Name: "+ dm.getDatabaseProductName());
System.out.println("\tDatabase Version: "+ dm.getDatabaseProductVersion());
System.out.println("Avalilable Catalogs ");
rs = dm.getCatalogs();
while(rs.next()){
System.out.println("\tcatalog: "+ rs.getString(1));
}
rs.close();
rs = null;
closeConnection();
}else System.out.println("Error: No active Connection");
}catch(Exception e){
e.printStackTrace();
}
dm=null;
}

private void closeConnection(){
try{
if(con!=null)
con.close();
con=null;
}catch(Exception e){
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
{
Connect myDbTest = new Connect();
myDbTest.displayDbProperties();
}
}

Output

If this code is successful, the output is similar to the following:

Connection Successful!
Driver Information
Driver Name: SQLServer
Driver Version: 2.2.0022

Database Information
Database Name: Microsoft SQL Server
Database Version: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 - 8.00.384 (Intel X86)
May 23 2001 00:02:52
Copyright (c) 1988-2000 Microsoft Corporation
Desktop Engine on Windows NT 5.1 (Build 2600: )

Avalilable Catalogs
catalog: master
catalog: msdb
catalog: pubs
catalog: tempdb

This is an excerpt from microsoft article. Here is the full article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313100