Connect to REST Data in RazorSQL

The CData JDBC Driver for REST 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 REST using wizards in RazorSQL.

Create a JDBC Data Source for REST 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.rest.RESTDriver.
   • 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:rest: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     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 the following:

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

Query REST 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.