Connect to Spotify Data in Aqua Data Studio

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Access Spotify data from tools in Aqua Data Studio such as the Visual Query Builder and the Table Data Editor.

The CData JDBC Driver for Spotify integrates Spotify data with wizards and analytics in IDEs like Aqua Data Studio. This article shows how to connect to Spotify data through the connection manager and execute queries.

Create a JDBC Data Source

You can use the connection manager to define connection properties and save them in a new JDBC data source. The Spotify data source can then be accessed from Aqua Data Studio tools.

  1. In Aqua Data Studio, select Register Server from the Servers menu.
  2. In the Register Server form, select the 'Generic - JDBC' connection.
  3. Enter the following JDBC connection properties:
    • Name: Enter a name for the data source; for example, Spotify.
    • Driver Location: Click the Browse button and select the cdata.jdbc.api.jar file, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
    • Driver: Enter the Driver's class name, cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver.
    • URL: Enter the JDBC URL, which starts with jdbc:api: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

      Using OAuth Authentication

      Spotify uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication. You will need to create an application in the Spotify Developer Dashboard to obtain your client credentials.

      Setting Up Your Spotify Application

      1. Visit the Spotify Developer Dashboard.
      2. Log in with your Spotify account and click Create app.
      3. Provide an app name, description, and set a Redirect URI (e.g.,
        http://localhost:33333
        for desktop applications).
      4. Copy your Client ID and Client Secret from the app settings.

      Connection Properties

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

      • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
      • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
      • OAuthClientId: Set this to your Spotify application's Client ID.
      • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to your Spotify application's Client Secret.
      • Scope: Set this to the required OAuth scopes (space-separated). The default includes all read scopes needed for the tables in this profile.
      • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI configured in your Spotify application (e.g., http://localhost:33333).

      Example Connection String

      Profile=C:\profiles\Spotify.apip;AuthScheme=OAuth;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackURL=http://localhost:33333;
      

      Available OAuth Scopes

      • user-read-private: Read access to user's subscription details and explicit content settings.
      • user-read-email: Read access to user's email address.
      • user-library-read: Read access to a user's saved tracks, albums, episodes, shows, and audiobooks.
      • playlist-read-private: Read access to user's private playlists.
      • playlist-read-collaborative: Read access to collaborative playlists the user follows.
      • user-follow-read: Read access to the list of artists the current user follows.
      • user-read-playback-state: Read access to a user's player state (device, current track, progress).
      • user-read-currently-playing: Read access to a user's currently playing content.
      • user-read-playback-history: Read access to a user's recently played tracks.
      • user-top-read: Read access to a user's top artists and tracks.

      Built-in Connection String Designer

      For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Spotify 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 typical JDBC URL is below:
      jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Spotify.apip;AuthScheme=OAuth;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackURL=http://localhost:33333;

Query Spotify Data

You can now query the tables exposed.

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from Spotify with the API Driver

Connect to Spotify