To connect a Java application to a database, you typically use JDBC (Java Database Connectivity). JDBC is an API that allows Java programs to interact with various databases, such as MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL.

First, you need to include the JDBC driver for your specific database in your project. For example, if you are using MySQL, you would include the MySQL JDBC driver in your classpath.

Next, you can establish a connection to the database using the DriverManager class. Here’s a basic example:

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.SQLException;

public class DatabaseConnection {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/yourDatabase";
        String user = "yourUsername";
        String password = "yourPassword";

        try {
            Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection(url, user, password);
            System.out.println("Connection successful!");
            // Perform database operations here
        } catch (SQLException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Make sure to replace yourDatabase, yourUsername, and yourPassword with your actual database name and credentials. This code will establish a connection to the MySQL database running on your local machine.

For more detailed information on JDBC and its setup, you can refer to the relevant documents ¹³.