Connect to Alchemy Data in NetBeans

The CData JDBC Driver for Alchemy integrates connectivity to live Alchemy data in IDEs that support JDBC. The JDBC standard enables you to use built-in data access wizards and other tools supporting rapid development. This article shows how to connect to Alchemy data in NetBeans. You will create a connection and load Alchemy data in the Table Editor.

Create a JDBC Data Source for Alchemy in NetBeans

To create the JDBC data source, expand the Database node in the Service window, right-click the Drivers node, and select New Driver. In the New Driver wizard that results, enter the following information:

• Driver File(s): Click Add and, in the file explorer dialog that appears, select the cdata.jdbc.api.jar file. The driver JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
• Driver Class: Click Find to search for the driver class inside the JAR. Then select cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver from the menu.
• Name: Enter the name for the driver.

Define Connection Parameters

Follow the steps below to define required connection properties:

1. In the Service window, right-click the Database node and click New Connection.

2. In the New Connection Wizard, enter the following connection properties:

   • Driver Name: In the menu, select the CData JDBC Driver for Alchemy.
   • User Name: Enter the username. This can also be defined in the JDBC URL.
   • Password: Enter the password. This can also be defined in the JDBC URL.

   • JDBC URL: Specify the JDBC URL.

     Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Alchemy Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Alchemy.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Alchemy (see below).

     Alchemy API Profile Settings

     Alchemy uses API key authentication. The API key is supplied in the request URL path. To obtain an API key:

     1. Sign in to your Alchemy account at https://dashboard.alchemy.com.
     2. Open an existing app or create a new one.
     3. Copy the app's API key from the API Key dialog.

     After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

     • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
     • Network: Optional. The blockchain network slug for NFT API requests (for example, eth-mainnet, base-mainnet, polygon-mainnet). Defaults to eth-mainnet.

     Set the following in the ProfileSettings connection property:

     • APIKey: Set this to your Alchemy app API key.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     
     java -jar cdata.jdbc.api.jar
     

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

     

     A typical JDBC URL is the following:

     jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Alchemy.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;Network=eth-mainnet;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';

Query Alchemy Data

To connect to Alchemy data, right-click the connection in the Database node and click Connect. After the connection is established, you can expand it to discover schema information.

To load a table in the Data Views window, right-click the table and then click View Data..