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

Create a DAO for the SparkPost ABTests 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 MyABTestsDAO {
  //request specific data from SparkPost (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT Name FROM ABTests WHERE Status = :status")
  String findNameByStatus(@Bind("status") String status);

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

Open a Connection to SparkPost

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

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

SparkPost API Profile Settings

Generate an API key by navigating to Configuration > API Keys > Create API Key in your SparkPost account.

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\SparkPost.apip;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\SparkPost.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';");
MyABTestsDAO dao = dbi.open(MyABTestsDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read SparkPost Data

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

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

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