Need some help establishing connection to mysql database with java

[Darin Cyr]

HI,
I'm trying to get java to connect to a mysql database and I'm getting an error that looks like the driver is sending a bad string to mysql server.

Can anyone tell me what's going on here and how to fix it?
Thanks!!!

Details:
OS: ubuntu 8.10
MySQL server: 5.0.67
java version 1.6.0_0
driver: mysql-connector-java-5.1.6.jar
IDE: Eclipse

Code:
import java.sql.*;

public class Connect
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
try
{
//register the driver
try
{
Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
}
catch(Exception e)
{
System.out.println(e.getMessage());
}
System.out.println("driver registered");

Connection conn=DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost/form?" +
"user=root&password=master");
System.out.println("connection established");
} // try
catch(SQLException ex)
{
System.out.println(ex.getMessage());
System.out.println("SQLState: " + ex.getSQLState());
System.out.println("VendorError: " + ex.getErrorCode());
} // end catch
}// end main
} // end class Connection



Error Message from terminal:

driver registered
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


Error message from mysql server log:
41 Connect root@localhost on form
41 Query /* mysql-connector-java-5.1.6 ( Revision: ${svn.Revision} ) */SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_name ='language' OR Variable_name = 'net_write_timeout' OR Variable_name = 'interactive_timeout' OR Variable_name = 'wait_timeout' OR Variable_name = 'character_set_client' OR Variable_name = 'character_set_connection' OR Variable_name = 'character_set' OR Variable_name = 'character_set_server' OR Variable_name = 'tx_isolation' OR Variable_name = 'transaction_isolation' OR Variable_name = 'character_set_results' OR Variable_name = 'timezone' OR Variable_name = 'time_zone' OR Variable_name = 'system_time_zone' OR Variable_name = 'lower_case_table_names' OR Variable_name = 'max_allowed_packet' OR Variable_name = 'net_buffer_length' OR Variable_name = 'sql_mode' OR Variable_name = 'query_cache_type' OR Variable_name = 'query_cache_size' OR Variable_name = 'init_connect'
41 Query SHOW COLLATION
41 Query ????????????????