java : non-static variable cannot be referenced from a static context Error

Question

The following code is generating an error on the variable con2 saying "non-static variable con2 cannot be referenced from a static context Error." I Googled for a resolution and they are suggesting the variable isn't initalized yet to make the methods available. Am I initializing this incorrectly? I also tried changing things to public but that didn't help either.

import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;

import java.sql.*;
import java.sql.CallableStatement;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbcx.JtdsDataSource;
import net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver;

class testconnect { 

     private java.sql.Connection con2 = null;

     private final String url2 = "jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://";
     private final String serverName= "SQL01";
     private final String portNumber = "2677";
     private final String databaseName= "App";
     private final String userName = "bob";
     private final String password = "boob";
     private final String selectMethod = "cursor";  

     private String getConnectionUrl2(){
        System.out.println("initalizing jtds");
          //String returnVal = url+serverName+":"+portNumber+";databaseName="+databaseName+";user="+userName+";password="+password+";instance="+instance+";";
          String returnVal = url2+serverName+":"+portNumber+"/"+databaseName+";user="+userName+";password="+password;
          System.out.println("url2: " + returnVal);
          return returnVal;
     }

     public static void main (String[] args) { 
         con2 = java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(getConnectionUrl2());

     } 

} //end class 

Answer 1

You probably want to add "static" to the declaration of con2.

In Java, things (both variables and methods) can be properties of the class (which means they're shared by all objects of that type), or they can be properties of the object (a different one in each object of the same class). The keyword "static" is used to indicate that something is a property of the class.

"Static" stuff exists all the time. The other stuff only exists after you've created an object, and even then each individual object has its own copy of the thing. And the flip side of this is key in this case: static stuff can't access non-static stuff, because it doesn't know which object to look in. If you pass it an object reference, it can do stuff like "thingie.con2", but simply saying "con2" is not allowed, because you haven't said which object's con2 is meant.