I am new to Java so please be gentle. I confess not having read
through some basic stuff yet, although I am doing my best sifting
through the racks and piles of documents I have.

In the invocation below:

@java -classpath ../lib/hsqldb.jar org.hsqldb.Server %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6
%7 %8 %9

are the %x mnemonics for some entry points in the Server class?

I understand the above invocation as:

1. Call the java.exe file to execute Server.class which resides in org/
hsqldb/
2. For this call, set the classpath, i.e. look for .class and .jar
files in parentOfCurrentDir/lib/hsqldb.jar

What I do not understand is the % symbols. Are they ordinals for entry
points like invoking dll entry points in C?