Connect to Hacker News Data in RazorSQL

The CData JDBC Driver for Hacker News enables standards-based access from third-party tools, from wizards in IDEs to data management and analysis tools. This article shows how to connect to Hacker News using wizards in RazorSQL.

Create a JDBC Data Source for Hacker News Data

1. Open the RazorSQL application and, in the Connections menu, select Add Connection Profile -> Other -> JDBC.
2. In the Connection Wizard that appears, set the following properties:
   • Driver Location: Set this property to the path to the lib subfolder in the installation directory.
   • Driver Class: Set the driver class to cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver.
   • Username: Enter the username. (This property can also be set in the JDBC URL.)
   • Password: Enter the password. (This property can also be set in the JDBC URL.)

   • JDBC URL: Enter connection parameters. The JDBC URL begins with jdbc:api: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     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 and Select Tables

After establishing a connection, the wizard will close and the connection will be available in the connections panel. You can then query the tables.