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

Create a DAO for the ZohoDesk AccessibleOrganizations 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 MyAccessibleOrganizationsDAO {
  //request specific data from ZohoDesk (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT CompanyName FROM AccessibleOrganizations WHERE IsDefault = :isDefault")
  String findCompanyNameByIsDefault(@Bind("isDefault") String isDefault);

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

Open a Connection to ZohoDesk

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

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

ZohoDesk API Profile Settings

Register an OAuth application in the Zoho Developer Console as a server-based application to obtain your Client ID and Client Secret.

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\ZohoDesk.apip;Authscheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackUrl=your_callback_url;

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\ZohoDesk.apip;Authscheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackUrl=your_callback_url;");
MyAccessibleOrganizationsDAO dao = dbi.open(MyAccessibleOrganizationsDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read ZohoDesk Data

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

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

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