I've got it working once using something like java:jclass in SLIME REPL, but not it doesn't seem to work (in a slightly different environment).
Note that if jar is added to classpath via java commandline Class.forName will work fine. That's probably the easiest way to get it working. Only loading jar dynamically via classloader is a problem. I've also tried that. Started ABCL with 'java -cp $JDBC_JAR abcl.jar' and Class.forName still didn't work. Am I missing some parameter?
It looks like you can't use both -cp and -jar. Here's what works for me: --- $ java -cp abcl.jar:postgresql.jdbc3.jar org.armedbear.lisp.Main Armed Bear Common Lisp 1.0.1-svn-13932 Java 1.6.0_20 Sun Microsystems Inc. OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Low-level initialization completed in 1.024 seconds. Startup completed in 3.393 seconds. Type ":help" for a list of available commands. CL-USER(1): (jstatic "forName" "java.lang.Class" "org.postgresql.Driver") #<java.lang.Class class org.postgresql.Driver {218C6982}> CL-USER(6): (java:jstatic "getConnection" "java.sql.DriverManager" "jdbc:postgresql:jena_test" "alex" "xxxxxx") #<org.postgresql.jdbc3.Jdbc3Connection org.postgresql.jdbc3.Jdbc3Connec.... {4FC0CB76}> --- So, I specify both postgresql and abcl jars in -cp and load class org.armedbear.lisp.Main (it starts interpreter and repl). Then, well, it works. I use older version of PostgreSQL driver, but I think it doesn't really matter. HTH