Build a PostgreSQL Interface for REST Data using the CData JDBC Driver

There are a vast number of PostgreSQL clients available on the Internet. From standard Drivers to BI and Analytics tools, PostgreSQL is a popular interface for data access. Using our JDBC Drivers, you can now create PostgreSQL entry-points that you can connect to from any standard client.

To access REST data as a PostgreSQL database, use the CData JDBC Driver for REST and a JDBC foreign data wrapper (FDW). In this article, we compile the FDW, install it, and query REST data from PostgreSQL Server.

Connect to REST Data as a JDBC Data Source

To connect to REST as a JDBC data source, you will need the following:

• Driver JAR path: The JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.

• Driver class:

  cdata.jdbc.rest.RESTDriver
  

• JDBC URL: The URL must start with "jdbc:rest:" and can include any of the connection properties in name-value pairs separated with semicolons.

  See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation to authenticate to your data source: The data provider models REST APIs as bidirectional database tables and XML/JSON files as read-only views (local files, files stored on popular cloud services, and FTP servers). The major authentication schemes are supported, including HTTP Basic, Digest, NTLM, OAuth, and FTP. See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation for authentication guides.

  After setting the and providing any authentication values, set to "XML" or "JSON" and set to more closely match the data representation to the structure of your data.

  The property is the controlling property over how your data is represented into tables and toggles the following basic configurations.

  • Document (default): Model a top-level, document view of your REST data. The data provider returns nested elements as aggregates of data.
  • FlattenedDocuments: Implicitly join nested documents and their parents into a single table.
  • Relational: Return individual, related tables from hierarchical data. The tables contain a primary key and a foreign key that links to the parent document.

  See the Modeling REST Data chapter for more information on configuring the relational representation. You will also find the sample data used in the following examples. The data includes entries for people, the cars they own, and various maintenance services performed on those cars.

  Built-in Connection String Designer

  For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the REST JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

  java -jar cdata.jdbc.rest.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 below:

  jdbc:rest:DataModel=Relational;URI=C:/people.xml;Format=XML;
  

Build the JDBC Foreign Data Wrapper

The Foreign Data Wrapper can be installed as an extension to PostgreSQL, without recompiling PostgreSQL. The jdbc2_fdw extension is used as an example (downloadable here).

1. Add a symlink from the shared object for your version of the JRE to /usr/lib/libjvm.so. For example:

   ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/lib/amd64/server/libjvm.so /usr/lib/libjvm.so
   

2. Start the build:

   make install USE_PGXS=1
   

Query REST Data as a PostgreSQL Database

After you have installed the extension, follow the steps below to start executing queries to REST data:

1. Log into your database.
2. Load the extension for the database:

   CREATE EXTENSION jdbc2_fdw;
   

3. Create a server object for REST:

   CREATE SERVER REST 
   FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER jdbc2_fdw OPTIONS (
   drivername 'cdata.jdbc.rest.RESTDriver',
   url 'jdbc:rest:DataModel=Relational;URI=C:/people.xml;Format=XML;',
   querytimeout '15',
   jarfile '/home/MyUser/CData/CData\ JDBC\ Driver\ for\ Salesforce MyDriverEdition/lib/cdata.jdbc.rest.jar'); 
   

4. Create a user mapping for the username and password of a user known to the MySQL daemon.

   CREATE USER MAPPING for postgres SERVER REST OPTIONS (
   username 'admin', 
   password 'test');
   

5. Create a foreign table in your local database:

   postgres=# CREATE FOREIGN TABLE people (
   people_id text,
   people_[ personal.name.first ] text,
   people_[ personal.name.last ] numeric) 
   SERVER REST OPTIONS (
   table_name 'people');
   

You can now execute read/write commands to REST:

postgres=# SELECT * FROM people;