Integrate Hacker News Data in the Pentaho Report Designer

The CData JDBC driver for Hacker News data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports. This article shows how to connect to Hacker News data as a JDBC data source and publish reports based on Hacker News data in Pentaho.

Connect and Create a Report

1. Copy the JAR file of the driver, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory, to the \Report-Designer\lib\jdbc\ folder in the Pentaho directory.
2. Run the report-designer.bat file in the \Report-Designer\ folder to open the Report-Designer UI.

3. Create a new data source with the driver by clicking Data -> Add Data Source -> Advanced -> JDBC (Custom) and then creating a new Hacker News connection. In the resulting dialog, configure the connection properties as shown below.

   • Custom Connection URL property: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:api: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     Connecting to HackerNews

     The HackerNews API (powered by Firebase) is a public API that requires no authentication. You can connect and query data immediately without any credentials.

     After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

     • AuthScheme: Set this to None.

     Example connection string:

     Profile=C:\profiles\HackerNews.apip;AuthScheme=None
     

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Hacker News 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.

     

     When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

     Below is a typical JDBC URL:

     jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\HackerNews.apip;AuthScheme=None

   • Custom Driver Class Name: Enter cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver.
   • User Name: The username to authenticate with.
   • Password: The password to authenticate with.
   

Add Hacker News Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with Hacker News data.

1. Add the Hacker News source to your report: Click Data -> Add Data Source -> JDBC and select the data source.

2. Configure the query. This article uses the one below:

   SELECT ,  FROM TopStories WHERE  = ''

   
3. Drag a chart onto your report and double-click it to edit the chart. Run the report to display the chart. You can use the results of this query to create a simple chart for the TopStories table.
4. Finally, run the report to see the chart.