SELECT * FROM table throws error in JDBC

Question

I am trying to make a select from a table, which works fine with every other table in my database, but when I try the following I recieve an error:

db.makeQuery("SELECT * FROM References");

Which calls:

public ResultSet makeQuery(String query) throws Exception
{
    preparedStatement = connect.prepareStatement(query);
    resultSet = preparedStatement.executeQuery(query);
    return resultSet;

}

It then throws the following error:

com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.MySQLSyntaxErrorException:
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 'References' at line 1

I seems very strange to me, since this statement works:

db.makeQuery("select * from Products");

Answer 1

References is a keyword in SQL, so you better avoid it for table names. (See for instance this documentation.)

As suggested by Nishant, you can use reserved words in queries if you escape them with backticks.

Related question:

• Using MySQL keywords in a query?

Answer 2

use

 db.makeQuery("SELECT * FROM `References`");

if you can, better, avoid having names that are MySQL keywords. As suggested by aioobe