Create a Data Access Object for ClickTime 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 ClickTime integrates connectivity to live ClickTime data in Java applications. By pairing these technologies, you gain simple, programmatic access to ClickTime data. This article explains how to build a basic Data Access Object (DAO) and the accompanying code to read ClickTime data.

Create a DAO for the ClickTime Allocations 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 MyAllocationsDAO {
  //request specific data from ClickTime (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT Job FROM Allocations WHERE UserIsActive = :userIsActive")
  String findJobByUserIsActive(@Bind("userIsActive") String userIsActive);

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

Open a Connection to ClickTime

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

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

ClickTime API Profile Settings

Log into ClickTime, navigate to My Preferences, select the Authentication Token tab, and copy your API token.

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Clicktime.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_token';

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\Clicktime.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_token';");
MyAllocationsDAO dao = dbi.open(MyAllocationsDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read ClickTime Data

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

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

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