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

Create a DAO for the GitLab AccessRequests 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 MyAccessRequestsDAO {
  //request specific data from GitLab (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT Username FROM AccessRequests WHERE State = :state")
  String findUsernameByState(@Bind("state") String state);

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

Open a Connection to GitLab

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

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

GitLab API Profile Settings

Create a Personal Access Token in GitLab under User Settings > Access Tokens, selecting the required scopes (e.g.,

read_api

api

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\GitLab.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_personal_access_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\GitLab.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_personal_access_token';");
MyAccessRequestsDAO dao = dbi.open(MyAccessRequestsDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read GitLab Data

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

//disply the result of our 'find' method
String username = dao.findUsernameByState("pending");
System.out.println(username);

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