How to connect to Hugging Face Data from IntelliJ

The CData JDBC Driver for Hugging Face enables you to access Hugging Face as a JDBC data source, providing integration with rapid development tools in IDEs. This article shows how to use the data source configuration wizard to connect to Hugging Face data in IntelliJ.

Create a JBDC Data Source for Hugging Face

Follow the steps below to add the driver JAR and define connection properties required to connect to Hugging Face data.

1. In the Data Sources window, right-click and then click Add Data Source -> DB Data Source.

2. In the Data Source Properties dialog that appears, the following properties are required:

   • JDBC Driver Files: Click the button next to this menu to add the JDBC Driver file cdata.jdbc.api.jar, located in the installation directory.
   • JDBC Driver Class: In this menu, select cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver from the list.

   • Database URL: Enter the connection URL in the JDBC URL property. The URL must start with jdbc:api: and includes connection properties separated with semicolons.

     HuggingFace Hub uses token-based authentication to enable access to its API. The API provides access to machine learning models, datasets, spaces, papers, and other resources on the HuggingFace Hub platform.

     Using API Key Authentication

     To authenticate to HuggingFace Hub, you will need to provide an API Key (Access Token). To obtain your access token:

     1. Log in to your HuggingFace account at https://huggingface.co
     2. Navigate to Settings > Access Tokens
     3. Click "New token" to create a new access token
     4. Select the appropriate permissions (read or write)
     5. Copy the token value

     After obtaining your access token, set the following connection properties:

     • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
     • APIKey: Set this to your HuggingFace access token.

     Example connection string

     Profile=C:\profiles\HuggingFace.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=hf_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';
     

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Hugging Face 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\HuggingFace.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=hf_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';

Edit and Save Hugging Face Data

To discover schema information, right-click the data source you just created and click Refresh Tables. To query a table, right-click it and then click Open Tables Editor.