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

Create a DAO for the Scrapfly Account 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 MyAccountDAO {
  //request specific data from Scrapfly (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT  FROM Account WHERE  = :")
  String findBy(@Bind("") String );

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

Open a Connection to Scrapfly

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

The Scrapfly API uses API Key authentication. The API key is passed as the key query parameter on every request.

Using API Key Authentication

Your Scrapfly API key is required to create a connection. To obtain your API key:

1. Log into your Scrapfly account at scrapfly.io.
2. Navigate to Dashboard and select API Keys.
3. Copy your API key (begins with scp-live- for production or scp-test- for the test environment).

After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Scrapfly API key.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\Scrapfly.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Scrapfly.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';

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\Scrapfly.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';");
MyAccountDAO dao = dbi.open(MyAccountDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read Scrapfly Data

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

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

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