Query Apache Airflow Data in ColdFusion

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Write standard ColdFusion data access code to connect to Apache Airflow data.

The CData JDBC driver for Apache Airflow seamlessly integrates connectivity to Apache Airflow data with the rapid development tools in ColdFusion. This article shows how to connect to Apache Airflow data in ColdFusion and query Apache Airflow tables.

Create a JDBC Data Source for Apache Airflow in ColdFusion

The JDBC data source enables you to execute SQL from standard ColdFusion tags like cfquery and CFScript like executeQuery.

  1. Copy the driver JAR and .lic file from the installation directory onto the ColdFusion classpath. For example, copy the files into C:\MyColdFusionDirectory\cfusion\wwwroot\WEB-INF\lib. Or, open the Java and JVM page in the ColdFusion Administrator and enter the path to the files in the ColdFusion Class Path box.

    The JAR and license for the driver are located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.

    Restart the server after this step.

  2. Add the driver as a data source:

    From the ColdFusion administrator interface, expand the Data & Services node and click Data Sources. In the Add New Data Source section, enter a name for the data source and select Other in the Driver menu.

    Adding a JDBC data source to ColdFusion. (Salesforce is shown.)
  3. Populate the driver properties:

    • JDBC URL: Enter connection properties in the JDBC URL. The JDBC URL begins with jdbc:api: and is followed by the connection properties in a semicolon-separated list of name=value pairs.

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

      ApacheAirflow API Profile Settings

      Apache Airflow 3 uses JWT Bearer tokens for API authentication. You can generate a token from the Airflow web UI under Settings or via the Airflow CLI using airflow users create and the /api/v2/auth/token endpoint. Note that this profile targets Apache Airflow 3.x using the /api/v2 REST API. The legacy /api/v1 endpoint used by Airflow 2.x is not supported.

      After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

      • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
      • APIKey: Set this to your Apache Airflow JWT Bearer token.
      • Server: Set this to the base URL of your Airflow instance (e.g. http://localhost:8080).

      Built-in Connection String Designer

      For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Apache Airflow 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.

      Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)

      A typical JDBC URL is below:

      jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\ApacheAirflow.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_jwt_token;Server=http://localhost:8080';
    • Driver Class: Enter the driver class. The driver class is cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver.
    • Driver Name: Enter a user-defined name for the driver.
    • Username: Enter the username used to authenticate.
    • Password: Enter the password used to authenticate.
Required connection properties specified in the JDBC URL. (Salesforce is shown.)

You can now test the connection by enabling the CData Apache Airflow data source in the Actions column. After reporting a status of OK, the Apache Airflow data source is ready for use.

Test the connection in the Actions column. (Salesforce is shown.)

Execute Queries

The cfquery tag can pass SQL statements to Apache Airflow. Use the cfqueryparam tag to create parameterized queries and prevent SQL injection through the query string.

Note: To use the cfquery and cfscript, create a .cfm file. Inside the .cfm file, write the code to execute the query (see below). Place the file directly in the root directory of your web server (e.g., wwwroot in Adobe ColdFusion). Restart the service after placing the file for the changes to take effect.



<cfquery name="APIQuery" dataSource="CDataAPI">
  SELECT * FROM DagRuns WHERE DagId = <cfqueryparam value="#DagId#" cfsqltype="cf_sql_varchar">
</cfquery>
<cfdump var="#APIQuery#">

Below is the equivalent in CFScript:


<cfscript>
result = queryExecute(
  "SELECT * FROM DagRuns WHERE DagId = ?", 
  [
    { value="example_dag", cfsqltype="cf_sql_varchar" }
  ],
  { datasource="CDataAPI" }
);

writeDump( var= result );
</cfscript> 

You can then make requests to your .cfm like the following:

http://MyServer:8500/query.cfm?DagId=example_dag
Query results in an HTML table. (Salesforce is shown.)

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from Apache Airflow with the API Driver

Connect to Apache Airflow