问题：使用java中properties加载配置文件

出现java.lang.NullPointerException的问题，找了很久也没有找到解决方案代码如下：

package dao;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.sql.Statement;
import java.util.Properties;


/**
 * 单例模式的dbutil
 * */
public class DBUtil {

    private static DBUtil instanceDbUtil = new DBUtil();

    private static Properties properties = new Properties();
    private static  String dbdriver;
    private static  String dburl;
    private static  String username;
    private static  String password;

    private Connection connection;

    /**
     *  初始化配置文件
     * */
    private DBUtil(){
        try {
            properties.load(this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("conf/db.properties").openStream());
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.out.println("配置文件加载失败");
            e.printStackTrace();
        }catch (Exception e) {
            System.out.println("配置文件加载失败");
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        //设置参数
        dbdriver = properties.getProperty("driver");
        dburl = properties.getProperty("url");
        username = properties.getProperty("userName");
        password = properties.getProperty("password");
        System.out.println(dbdriver);
    }


    public void openConnection(){
        try {
            properties.load(DBUtil.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("conf/db.properties"));
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.out.println("配置文件加载失败");
            e.printStackTrace();
        }catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        //设置参数
        dbdriver = properties.getProperty("driver");
        dburl = properties.getProperty("url");
        username = properties.getProperty("userName");
        password = properties.getProperty("password");

        //创建连接
        try {
            Class.forName(dbdriver)
            .newInstance();
            connection = DriverManager.getConnection(dburl, username, password);
            System.out.println("connect to " +connection.getCatalog());
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.out.println("fail to connect to ...");
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    /**
     *  获得dbutil的实例，
     * 
     * */
    public static DBUtil getInstance(){
        return instanceDbUtil;
    }
    **************************************未完************************

代码问题出现在
properties.load(this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("conf/db.properties").openStream());
找了很久，然后把properties声明的时候去掉static问题迎刃而解，但是具体为什么是这样我还要再学习一下，后面的博文来解决。