What are Driver libraries for common databases ?

An appropriate JDBC driver library is required in the application’s classpath in order to work with a database engine via JDBC.

A JDBC driver library consists of Java classes which implement low-level communication with the database engine.

It talks with Java applications via JDBC API and usually bundled as a JAR or ZIP file.

Driver libraries

MySQL (Oracle corp.) : mysql-connector-java-3.0.17-ga-bin.jar

SQL Server (Microsoft) : sqljdbc.jar, sqljdbc4.jar

Oracle : jodbc5.jar, jodbc6.jar, …

PostgreSQL (PostgreSQL Global Development Group) : postgresql-9.1-902.jdbc4.jar

Some drivers come as JAR files (Oracle, PostgreSQL), so you can add the JAR files directly to your application’s classpath.

Some drivers come as ZIP bundles (MySQL, SQL Server), so you have to extract the bundles and copy the appropriate JAR file (as specified above) to your application’s classpath.