Connect to JSON Services in NetBeans

The CData JDBC Driver for JSON integrates connectivity to live JSON services in IDEs that support JDBC. The JDBC standard enables you to use built-in data access wizards and other tools supporting rapid development. This article shows how to connect to JSON services in NetBeans. You will create a connection and edit and save JSON services in the Table Editor.

Create a JDBC Data Source for JSON in NetBeans

To create the JDBC data source, expand the Database node in the Service window, right-click the Drivers node, and select New Driver. In the New Driver wizard that results, enter the following information:

• Driver File(s): Click Add and, in the file explorer dialog that appears, select the cdata.jdbc.json.jar file. The driver JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
• Driver Class: Click Find to search for the driver class inside the JAR. Then select cdata.jdbc.json.JSONDriver from the menu.
• Name: Enter the name for the driver.

Define Connection Parameters

Follow the steps below to define required connection properties:

1. In the Service window, right-click the Database node and click New Connection.

2. In the New Connection Wizard, enter the following connection properties:

   • Driver Name: In the menu, select the CData JDBC Driver for JSON.
   • User Name: Enter the username. This can also be defined in the JDBC URL.
   • Password: Enter the password. This can also be defined in the JDBC URL.

   • JDBC URL: Specify the JDBC URL.

     See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation to authenticate to your data source: The data provider models JSON APIs as bidirectional database tables and JSON files as read-only views (local files, files stored on popular cloud services, and FTP servers). The major authentication schemes are supported, including HTTP Basic, Digest, NTLM, OAuth, and FTP. See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation for authentication guides.

     After setting the URI and providing any authentication values, set DataModel to more closely match the data representation to the structure of your data.

     The DataModel property is the controlling property over how your data is represented into tables and toggles the following basic configurations.

     • Document (default): Model a top-level, document view of your JSON data. The data provider returns nested elements as aggregates of data.
     • FlattenedDocuments: Implicitly join nested documents and their parents into a single table.
     • Relational: Return individual, related tables from hierarchical data. The tables contain a primary key and a foreign key that links to the parent document.

     See the Modeling JSON Data chapter for more information on configuring the relational representation. You will also find the sample data used in the following examples. The data includes entries for people, the cars they own, and various maintenance services performed on those cars.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the JSON JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.json.jar

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     A typical JDBC URL is the following:

     jdbc:json:URI=C:/people.json;DataModel=Relational;

Query JSON Services

To connect to JSON services, right-click the connection in the Database node and click Connect. After the connection is established, you can expand it to discover schema information.

To load a table in the Data Views window, right-click the table and then click View Data. You can also insert, update, or delete records in the Data Views window.