About InterClient Drivers

Loading the InterClient Driver

Class.forName("interbase.interclient.Driver");

The first time the Java interpreter sees a reference to interbase.interclient.Driver, it loads the InterClient driver. When the driver is loaded it automatically creates an instance of itself, but there is no handle for it that lets you access that driver directly by name. This driver is "anonymous"; you don't need to reference it explicitly to make a database connection. You can make a database connection simply by invoking the java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection method.

It's the responsibility of each newly loaded driver to register itself with the DriverManager; the programmer is not required to register the driver explicitly. After the driver is registered, the DriverManager can use it to make database connections.