Create a Data Access Object for Billsby Data using JDBI

JDBI is a SQL convenience library for Java that exposes two different style APIs, a fluent style and a SQL object style. The CData JDBC Driver for Billsby integrates connectivity to live Billsby data in Java applications. By pairing these technologies, you gain simple, programmatic access to Billsby data. This article explains how to build a basic Data Access Object (DAO) and the accompanying code to read Billsby data.

Create a DAO for the Billsby AddonDetails Entity

The interface below declares the desired behavior for the SQL object to create a single method for each SQL statement to be implemented.

public interface MyAddonDetailsDAO {
  //request specific data from Billsby (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT Name FROM AddonDetails WHERE HasActiveLinkedPlans = :hasActiveLinkedPlans")
  String findNameByHasActiveLinkedPlans(@Bind("hasActiveLinkedPlans") String hasActiveLinkedPlans);

  /*
   * close with no args is used to close the connection
   */
  void close();
}

Open a Connection to Billsby

Collect the necessary connection properties and construct the appropriate JDBC URL for connecting to Billsby.

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

Billsby API Profile Settings

Retrieve your API Key from the Billsby control panel under Settings > Configuration > API keys and webhooks. Your domain is the subdomain from your Billsby account URL.

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Billsby 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 connection string for Billsby will typically look like the following:

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Billsby.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key;Domain=your_subdomain';

Use the configured JDBC URL to obtain an instance of the DAO interface. The particular method shown below will open a handle bound to the instance, so the instance needs to be closed explicitly to release the handle and the bound JDBC connection.

DBI dbi = new DBI("jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Billsby.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key;Domain=your_subdomain';");
MyAddonDetailsDAO dao = dbi.open(MyAddonDetailsDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read Billsby Data

With the connection open to Billsby, simply call the previously defined method to retrieve data from the AddonDetails entity in Billsby.

//disply the result of our 'find' method
String name = dao.findNameByHasActiveLinkedPlans("true");
System.out.println(name);

Since the JDBI library is able to work with JDBC connections, you can easily produce a SQL Object API for Billsby by integrating with the CData JDBC Driver for Billsby. Download a free trial and work with live Billsby data in custom Java applications today.