Connect to Hacker News Data in NetBeans

The CData JDBC Driver for Hacker News integrates connectivity to live Hacker News data in IDEs that support JDBC. The JDBC standard enables you to use built-in data access wizards and other tools supporting rapid development. This article shows how to connect to Hacker News data in NetBeans. You will create a connection and load Hacker News data in the Table Editor.

Create a JDBC Data Source for Hacker News in NetBeans

To create the JDBC data source, expand the Database node in the Service window, right-click the Drivers node, and select New Driver. In the New Driver wizard that results, enter the following information:

• Driver File(s): Click Add and, in the file explorer dialog that appears, select the cdata.jdbc.api.jar file. The driver JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
• Driver Class: Click Find to search for the driver class inside the JAR. Then select cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver from the menu.
• Name: Enter the name for the driver.

Define Connection Parameters

Follow the steps below to define required connection properties:

1. In the Service window, right-click the Database node and click New Connection.

2. In the New Connection Wizard, enter the following connection properties:

   • Driver Name: In the menu, select the CData JDBC Driver for Hacker News.
   • User Name: Enter the username. This can also be defined in the JDBC URL.
   • Password: Enter the password. This can also be defined in the JDBC URL.

   • JDBC URL: Specify the JDBC URL.

     Connecting to HackerNews

     The HackerNews API (powered by Firebase) is a public API that requires no authentication. You can connect and query data immediately without any credentials.

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

     • AuthScheme: Set this to None.

     Example connection string:

     Profile=C:\profiles\HackerNews.apip;AuthScheme=None
     

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Hacker News 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.

     👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
     

     A typical JDBC URL is the following:

     jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\HackerNews.apip;AuthScheme=None

Query Hacker News Data

To connect to Hacker News data, right-click the connection in the Database node and click Connect. After the connection is established, you can expand it to discover schema information.

To load a table in the Data Views window, right-click the table and then click View Data..