Loading a JAR dynamically

Hello

I have a Java App that needs to use JDBC Driver from various vendors, the thing is i don't know which at run time, so need someway of adding the JAR to my Apps Class Path so i can then load it as i would normally. Except i need this done while the application is running.

Now is this possible? and if so how'd i go about doing it as i've had no luck so far

So far, I've tried to extend URLClassLoader to handle the new jar file, using this (with loader.loadClass(name)), and also using a seperate thread and the contextclassloader of that. However, none of the things I've tried seem to work correctly. I would have thought that one of the things in the class was meant to add it to the DriverManager as soon as it was added using a loader.

Do I need to do something incredibly weird? I'm totally baffled.


Andy

Why not place the driver jars in the lib/ext directory of the JRE? It should be found there.
Then there is a static method of Class called forName or something:
Class driver = Class.forName("com.mysql.Driver");

I can't really rely on the fact that third parties will have the JAR's in that folder,

i was kind of hoping i could use them from anywhere on a persons system?!

They only need to be in the class path. This is easy to do. lib/ext is useful simply because the class path always points there.