title: "Cannot find symbol" problem when using Class.forName()
body: <p>I'm getting the <code>cannot find symbol</code> error from my code. Does anyone know what can cause this problem?</p>
  
  <p>The code is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>// Register JDBC driver
  Class.forName("net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver");
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and the error output is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>blah.java:314: cannot find symbol
  symbol  : method forName(java.lang.String)
  location: class java.lang.Class
                  Class.forName("net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver");
                       ^
  1 error
  </code></pre>
  
  <hr>
  
  <pre><code>//STEP 1. Import required packages
  import java.sql.*;
  
  public class JDBCExample {
     // JDBC driver name and database URL
     static final String JDBC_DRIVER = "com.sql.jdbc.Driver";
  
     static final String DB_URL = (":jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost:1433/tempdb" );
  
  
  
  
  
     //  Database credentials
     static final String USER = "username";
     static final String PASS = "password";
  
     public static void main(String[] args) {
     Connection conn = null;
     Statement stmt = null;
     try{
        //STEP 2: Register JDBC driver
        Class.forName("net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver");
  
        //STEP 3: Open a connection
  
        System.out.println("Connecting to database...");
        conn = DriverManager.getConnection(DB_URL, USER, PASS);
  
        //STEP 4: Execute a query
        System.out.println("Creating database...");
        stmt = conn.createStatement();
  
        String sql = "CREATE DATABASE ";
        stmt.executeUpdate(sql);
        System.out.println("Database created successfully...");
     }catch(SQLException se){
        //Handle errors for JDBC
        se.printStackTrace();
     }catch(Exception e){
        //Handle errors for Class.forName
        e.printStackTrace();
     }finally{
        //finally block used to close resources
        try{
           if(stmt!=null)
              stmt.close();
        }catch(SQLException se2){
        }// nothing we can do
        try{
           if(conn!=null)
              conn.close();
        }catch(SQLException se){
           se.printStackTrace();
        }//end finally try
     }//end try
     System.out.println("Goodbye");
  }//end main
  }//end JDBCExample
  </code></pre>