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

Create a DAO for the FreshBooks Invoices 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 MyInvoicesDAO {
 //request specific data from FreshBooks (String type is used for simplicity)
 @SqlQuery("SELECT InvoiceNumber FROM Invoices WHERE AccountId = :accountId")
 String findInvoiceNumberByAccountId(@Bind("accountId") String accountId);

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

Open a Connection to FreshBooks

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

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

FreshBooks API Profile Settings

Register an OAuth application in your FreshBooks Developer Dashboard to obtain a Client ID and Client Secret, and configure the redirect URI to match your application's callback URL.

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

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

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\FreshBooks.apip;Authscheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackUrl=your_callback_url;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;");
MyInvoicesDAO dao = dbi.open(MyInvoicesDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read FreshBooks Data

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

//disply the result of our 'find' method
String invoiceNumber = dao.findInvoiceNumberByAccountId("your_account_id");
System.out.println(invoiceNumber);

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