Java/mySQL veterans: Is there something wrong with the logon string in
the DriverManager.getConnection method below? I'm getting a
NullPointerException when I run the code below.

Here's the entire error message:

"Error location #2
SQL Exception: You have an error in your SQL syntax: check the manual
that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to
use near '|' at line 1
SQLState: 42000
VendorError: 1064
Exception in thread 'main' java.lang.NullPointerException at
Test2.main(Test2.java:44)"

[Appended note: the statement at that line is
 stmt = conn.createStatement(); ]

Environment: MySQL database 5.0.21-community-nt, MySQL Client version
5.0.11, MS XP Home with Service Pack 2, mysql-connector-java-3.1.13,
Unicode database.

The classpath set before running the application is:

SET
CLASSPATH=.;c:\mysql-connector-java-3.1.13\mysql-connector-java-3.1.13-bin.jar

Here is the program. (It's not intended to do anything but
successfully access the database.):

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.Statement;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.SQLException;

public class Test2
{   

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
    Connection conn = null;
    Statement stmt = null;
    ResultSet rs = null;
    try
        {
        // The newInstance() call is a work around for some
        // broken Java implementations
        Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver").newInstance();
        }
    catch (Exception ex)
        {
        System.out.println("Error location #1");
        System.out.println("SQLException: " +
ex.getMessage());
        }
   
    try
        {
        conn =
DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql:///mydbname?user=myusername&password=mypassword&useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf-8");
        // The above, unfortunately, is generating a
NullPointerException
        }
    catch (SQLException ex)
        {
        // handle any errors
        System.out.println("Error location #2");
        System.out.println("SQLException: " +
ex.getMessage());
        System.out.println("SQLState: " + ex.getSQLState());
        System.out.println("VendorError: " +
ex.getErrorCode());
        }

    // assume that conn is an already created JDBC connection
    try
        {
        stmt = conn.createStatement();
        }
    catch (SQLException ex)
        {
        System.out.println("Error location #3");
        System.out.println("SQLException: " +
ex.getMessage());
        }
   
    try
        {
        rs = stmt.executeQuery("SELECT count(*) from poets");
        System.out.println("The query apparently executed");
        }
    catch (SQLException ex)
        {
        System.out.println("Error location #4");
        System.out.println("SQLException: " +
ex.getMessage());
        }
    /* or alternatively, if you don't know ahead of time that
      the query will be a SELECT...
         if (stmt.execute("SELECT count(*) from poets"))
        jdbc:mysql:///chinese?user=root&password=lqi5B   
        rs = stmt.getResultSet();
    Now do something with the ResultSet ....
    */
    finally
        {
        // it is a good idea to release  resources in a
finally{} block
        // in reverse-order of their creation if they are
no-longer needed
        if (rs != null)
            {
            try
                {
                rs.close();
                }
            catch (SQLException sqlEx)
                { // ignore }
                rs = null;
                }
            }
           
        if (stmt != null)
            {
            try
                {
                stmt.close();
                }
            catch (SQLException sqlEx)
                { // ignore }
                stmt = null;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Thanks in advance,
R. Schulman (To email me, remove 'xx' in reply-to)