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

Create a DAO for the FreeAgent BankAccounts 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 MyBankAccountsDAO {
  //request specific data from FreeAgent (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT Url FROM BankAccounts WHERE Status = :status")
  String findUrlByStatus(@Bind("status") String status);

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

Open a Connection to FreeAgent

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

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

FreeAgent API Profile Settings

Register an OAuth application via the FreeAgent Developer Dashboard to obtain your Client ID and Client Secret.

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\FreeAgent.apip;Authscheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackUrl=your_callback_url;

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\FreeAgent.apip;Authscheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackUrl=your_callback_url;");
MyBankAccountsDAO dao = dbi.open(MyBankAccountsDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read FreeAgent Data

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

//disply the result of our 'find' method
String url = dao.findUrlByStatus("active");
System.out.println(url);

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