ClassNotFoundException when trying to connect to SQL server 2005 with Java

Question

I'm fairly new to database management. I'm just trying to connect to the database and retrieve and display a table in the command prompt. The database is not on my computer. I am fairly certain that the url is the problem. The code:

import java.io.*;
import java.sql.*;

class transfer{

//driver and DB URLs
final static String driver = "com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver";
final static String DB_SQL = "jdbc:microsoft:sqlserver://localhost:1433;" + "database=DataDB;" + "user=sa;" + "password=1234";

//Database Username and password
final static String user1 = "sa";
final static String pass1 = "1234";

static ResultSet rs;        
public static void main(String args[]) throws SQLException, ClassNotFoundException{

    Connection conn_sql = null;
    Statement stmt_sql = null;
    //Statement stmt_ora = null;

//Register JDBC driver      
    Class.forName("com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver");
//Open Connection   
    System.out.println("Connecting to SQL database...");
    conn_sql = DriverManager.getConnection(DB_SQL, user1, pass1);

//Execute Query
    String sql_query;

    System.out.println("Creating statement for SQL...");
    stmt_sql = conn_sql.createStatement();
    sql_query = "Select * from attendancesummary";
    rs = stmt_sql.executeQuery(sql_query);
    System.out.println("SQL table details");

    System.out.println("Creating statement for SQL...");

    while(rs.next()){
    //Retrieve data
        int cno = rs.getInt("CardNo");
        int in_time = rs.getInt("entry");
        int out_time = rs.getInt("Exittm");
        String name = rs.getString("Name"); 
        int date = rs.getInt("TrDate");

    //Display data
        System.out.print("Employee ID: "+cno);  
        System.out.print("\tName: "+name);
        System.out.print("\tDate:"+date);
        System.out.print("\tEntry: "+in_time);
        System.out.print("\tExit: "+out_time);
    }       

}

}

The database name is DataDB and the table that I want to retrieve and display is attendancesummary. I have set my path as "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_11\bin";"C:\Program Files\Microsoft JDBC Driver 4.0 for SQL Server\sqljdbc_4.0\enu\sqljdbc4.jar"

The code compiles fine.. but when I run it, I get the following error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass at java.lang.Class.forname0 at java.lang.Class.forname at transfer.main

I am truly lost. Any help would be appreciated!

Answer 1

It means that sqljdbc4.jar is missing from your CLASSPATH while running the code. If you are running this from command line then add the path to sqljdbc4.jar in -cp switch of java command.

If you are running from eclipse, then add sqljdbc4.jar in your build path.