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

Create a DAO for the ZohoExpense Currencies 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 MyCurrenciesDAO {
  //request specific data from ZohoExpense (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT CurrencyName FROM Currencies WHERE CurrencyCode = :currencyCode")
  String findCurrencyNameByCurrencyCode(@Bind("currencyCode") String currencyCode);

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

Open a Connection to ZohoExpense

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

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

ZohoExpense API Profile Settings

Register an OAuth application in the Zoho Developer Console 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 ZohoExpense 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 ZohoExpense will typically look like the following:

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\ZohoExpense.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\ZohoExpense.apip;Authscheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackUrl=your_callback_url;");
MyCurrenciesDAO dao = dbi.open(MyCurrenciesDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read ZohoExpense Data

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

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

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