Connect to CSV Data in as an External Source in Dremio

The CData JDBC Driver for CSV implements JDBC Standards and allows various applications, including Dremio, to work with live CSV data. Dremio is a data lakehouse platform designed to empower self-service, interactive analytics on the data lake. With the CData JDBC Driver, you can include live CSV data as a part of your enterprise data lake. This article describes how to connect to CSV data from Dremio as an External Source.

The CData JDBC Driver enables high-speed access to live CSV data in Dremio. Once you install the driver, authenticate with CSV and gain immediate access to CSV data within your data lake. By surfacing CSV data using native data types and handling complex filters, aggregations, & other operations automatically, the CData JDBC Driver grants seamless access to CSV data.

Build the ARP Connector

To use the CData JDBC Driver in Dremio, you need to build an Advanced Relation Pushdown (ARP) Connector. You can view the source code for the Connector on GitHub or download the ZIP file (GitHub.com) directly. Once you copy or extract the files, run the following command from the root directory of the connector (the directory containing the pom.xml file) to build the connector.

mvn clean install

Once the JAR file for the connector is built (in the target directory), you are ready to copy the ARP connector and JDBC Driver to your Dremio instance.

Installing the Connector and JDBC Driver

Install the ARP Connector to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/ and the JDBC Driver for CSV to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/3rdparty. You can use commands similar to the following:

ARP Connector

docker cp PATH\TO\dremio-csv-plugin-20.0.0.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/

JDBC Driver for CSV

docker cp PATH\TO\cdata.jdbc.csv.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/3rdparty/

Connecting to CSV

CSV will now appear as an External Source option in Dremio. The ARP Connector built uses a JDBC URL to connect to CSV data. The JDBC Driver has a built-in connection string designer that you can use (see below).

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the CSV JDBC Driver. Double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command line.

java -jar cdata.jdbc.csv.jar

Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

The DataSource property must be set to a valid local folder name.

Also, specify the IncludeFiles property to work with text files having extensions that differ from .csv, .tab, or .txt. Specify multiple file extensions in a comma-separated list. You can also set Extended Properties compatible with the Microsoft Jet OLE DB 4.0 driver. Alternatively, you can provide the format of text files in a Schema.ini file.

Set UseRowNumbers to true if you are deleting or updating in CSV. This will create a new column with the name RowNumber which will be used as key for that table.

NOTE: To use the JDBC Driver in Dremio, you will need a license (full or trial) and a Runtime Key (RTK). For more information on obtaining this license (or a trial), contact our sales team.

Add the Runtime Key (RTK) to the JDBC URL. You will end up with a JDBC URL similar to the following:

jdbc:csv:RTK=5246...;DataSource=MyCSVFilesFolder;

Access CSV as an External Source

To add CSV as an External Source, click to add a new source and select CSV. Copy the JDBC URL and paste it into the New CSV Source wizard.

Save the connection and you are ready to query live CSV data in Dremio, easily incorporating CSV data into your data lake.

More Information & Free Trial

Using the CData JDBC Driver for CSV in Dremio, you can incorporate live CSV data into your data lake. Check out our CData JDBC Driver for CSV page for more information about connecting to CSV. Download a free, 30 day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for CSV and get started today.