JDBC Interface with Oracle9

I am having issues with the following query. One of my co-workers say that this is a result of PreparedStatement being buggy in java, but I thought that was odd since I know may developers user this class.

In the example code below, the "rs.next()" produces a "false" result. When using the same query in the database and substituting the values, I get one row. This contradicts. Also, it is worth noting that if I remove "field_a3" and "field_a4", I get one row back. I have disected my code down to this primitive level with a lot of confusion and fustration. Any information or advise on making this code below work properly would be appreciated.

thanks

query = "SELECT * "+

"FROM table3 WHERE field_a1 = ? AND " +

"field_a2 = ? AND field_a3 = ? AND field_a4 = ?";

Context context = new InitialContext();

DataSource ds = (DataSource) context.lookup("example_ds");

Connection conn = ds.getConnection();

PreparedStatement pstmt = conn.prepareStatement(query);

pstmt.setString(1,"L1");

pstmt.setString(2,"hcgs");

pstmt.setString(3,"467759");

pstmt.setString(4,"sc");

ResultSet rs = pstmt.executeQuery();

System.out.println("next is <" + rs.next() + ">");

[1257 byte] By [jring1972a] at [2007-11-27 3:53:20]