Hello all I joined this forum today

Hello I joined newly in this forum today. Presently I am fiddling with advanced Java concepts. I am trying to handle databases through Java program. I could connect to mysql database, insert into table and query it. Now I want to create a table in database by passing the name of the table as a parameter. My code to do this is as follows:
Code:
public void createTable(String tableName){
connectToDB();
String statement = "create table ?(loginname varchar(12),rollnum varchar(15),stuname varchar(20),course char(4),sem char(2))";
try{
PreparedStatement st = conn.prepareStatement(statement);
st.setString(1,tableName);
st.executeUpdate();

}catch(SQLException e){
e.printStackTrace();
}

}
end of code:
Now when I give table name in the statement it works fine and creates table. But when I give it as a parameter I get the following error:

com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.MySQLSyntaxErrorEx ception: 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 ''student'(loginname varchar(12),rollnum varchar(15),stuname varchar(20),course c' at line 1

Can somebody tell me how to do it, if it is possible.

You can only use the '?' at a spot where a "value" is expected, not an "identifier" of any sort, whether that be a column identifier, a schema identifer, a type identifier, or a table identifier. Only "values". The only way you could do this is to use a String concatenation. And then check whether any special characters are contained in the name that would cause you to have to use quotes around the table name. See the SQL reference manual for the DB in question.

Thank you for the reply. Now I have another problem. This time in servlets. I created a java ee application and a ejb that converts temerature from one system to another. Then in the index.jsp, i am taking temperature and type of temperature (degrees C or F) from a form and calling a tempservlet. the servlet user the ejb and calculates the new temp. now I want to deligate display of the result to a jsp called showConversion.jsp. My code for this is as follows:

request.setAttribute("newtemp",equiv);
System.out.println("request = " +request);
RequestDispatcher rd = getServletContext().getRequestDispatcher("/showConversion.jsp");
System.out.println("rd= " +rd);
rd.forward(request, response);

The servlet is in the war file/source packages/servlets and jsps are in warfile/webpages folders respectively.

Now I am getting a nullpointer exception that points to getRequestDisatcher line. the program prints the required output in console. When I used the same technique in a java web application that ran well without errors. I feel the path of jsp is not correct. but using full path did'nt help.
the

Please try by removing the print statments.

It will be getServletContext() that is returning a null value, but I'm not familiar with servlets so I can't really help.