22. An alternative to static blocks

• A better alternative to the static initialization block is simply to use a static method:

  
  public class className
  {
      // any field declarations
      private static DBConnection connection = initializeConnection();
  
      private static DBConnection initializeConnection() {
      {
          DBConnection connection = null;
          try {
              String url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/SampleDB";
              String user = "robert";
              String password = "secret";
              connection = DBDriverManager.getConnection(
                  url, user, password
                  );
          } catch (Exception ex) {
              System.err.println(
                  "Error: unable to connect to the database."
                  );
          }
          return connection;
      }
  
      // the rest of the class
  }