How to connect to Carbone Data with Squirrel SQL client

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Connect to Carbone data and execute queries in the Squirrel SQL Client.

The CData JDBC Driver for Carbone enables you to execute queries to Carbone data in tools like Squirrel SQL Client. In this article, you will create a JDBC data source for Carbone data and execute queries.

Add the JDBC Driver for Carbone

Follow the steps below to add the driver JAR.

  1. In Squirrel SQL, click Windows -> View Drivers.
  2. Click the plus icon to open the Add Driver wizard.
  3. In the Name box, enter a user-friendly name for the driver; for example, CData JDBC Driver for Carbone.
  4. In the Example URL box, enter jdbc:api:
  5. In the Extra Class Path tab, click Add.
  6. In the file explorer dialog that opens, select the JAR file for the driver, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
  7. Click List Drivers to populate the Class Name menu with the class name for the driver, cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver.
The definition for the JDBC data source. (Salesforce is shown.)

Define Connection Properties

Follow the steps below to save connection properties in the driver alias.

  1. Click Windows -> View Aliases.
  2. In the pane that lists the aliases, click the plus icon.
  3. In the Add Alias wizard that opens, the following fields are required for the JDBC driver:

    • Name: Enter a name for the alias; for example, CData Carbone Source.
    • Driver: Select the CData JDBC Driver for Carbone.
    • URL: Enter jdbc:api:
    The alias definition, containing the connection parameters. (Salesforce is shown.)
  4. If you want to define any additional properties, click Properties.
  5. In the Driver properties tab of the dialog that appears, select the Use driver properties checkbox.
  6. In the Specify column, select the checkboxes for the required connection properties.

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

    Carbone API Profile Settings

    Carbone uses API key authentication via a Bearer token in the Authorization header. To obtain an API key:

    1. Log in to your Carbone account at https://account.carbone.io
    2. Copy the API key shown on the account home page

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

    • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
    • APIKey: Set this to your Carbone API key (Bearer token).
    • CarboneVersion: (Optional) The major version of the Carbone API to target via the carbone-version request header. Defaults to 5. Accepted values: 5, 4, 3, staging.

    Below is a typical connection string:

    
    jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Carbone.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;APIKey=your_api_key;
    
    Connection properties automatically detected by Squirrel SQL. (Salesforce is shown.)
  7. In the dialog that appears after you click OK, click connect to test the connection.

Discover Schemas and Query Carbone Data

After the metadata has loaded, a new tab for the Carbone data source is displayed. On the Objects subtab, you can discover schema information, such as the available tables and views.

Column metadata for a table. (Salesforce is shown.)

To view table data, select the table on the Objects tab. The table data is then loaded in a grid on the Content tab.

Tables can be edited on the Content tab. (Salesforce is shown.)

To execute an SQL query, enter the query on the SQL tab and then click Run SQL (the runner icon). For example:


SELECT Id, Name FROM Templates WHERE Category = 'Invoices'
A query and the results. (Salesforce is shown.)

Ready to get started?

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