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

Create a DAO for the Toggl Clients 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 MyClientsDAO {
  //request specific data from Toggl (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT WorkspaceId FROM Clients WHERE IsArchived = :isArchived")
  String findWorkspaceIdByIsArchived(@Bind("isArchived") String isArchived);

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

Open a Connection to Toggl

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

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

Toggl API Profile Settings

Obtain your API key from your Toggl account Profile Settings page, where it is listed under the API section.

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

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

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read Toggl Data

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

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

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