Access SAS xpt Data in Mule Applications Using the CData JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for SASxpt connects SAS xpt data to Mule applications enabling read functionality with familiar SQL queries. The JDBC Driver allows users to easily create Mule applications to backup, transform, report, and analyze SAS xpt data.

This article demonstrates how to use the CData JDBC Driver for SASxpt inside of a Mule project to create a Web interface for SAS xpt data. The application created allows you to request SAS xpt data using an HTTP request and have the results returned as JSON. The exact same procedure outlined below can be used with any CData JDBC Driver to create a Web interface for the hundreds of available data sources.

1. Create a new Mule Project in Anypoint Studio.
2. Add an HTTP Connector to the Message Flow.
3. Configure the address for the HTTP Connector. 👁 Add and Configure the HTTP Connector
   
4. Add a Database Select Connector to the same flow, after the HTTP Connector.
5. Create a new Connection (or edit an existing one) and configure the properties.
   • Set Connection to "Generic Connection"
   • Select the CData JDBC Driver JAR file in the Required Libraries section (e.g. cdata.jdbc.sasxpt.jar). 👁 Adding the JAR file (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Set the URL to the connection string for SAS xpt

     Connecting to Local SASXpt Files

     You can connect to local SASXpt file by setting the URI to a folder containing SASXpt files.

     Connecting to S3 data source

     You can connect to Amazon S3 source to read SASXpt files. Set the following properties to connect:

     • URI: Set this to the folder within your bucket that you would like to connect to.
     • AWSAccessKey: Set this to your AWS account access key.
     • AWSSecretKey: Set this to your AWS account secret key.
     • TemporaryLocalFolder: Set this to the path, or URI, to the folder that is used to temporarily download SASXpt file(s).

     Connecting to Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

     You can connect to ADLS Gen2 to read SASXpt files. Set the following properties to connect:

     • URI: Set this to the name of the file system and the name of the folder which contacts your SASXpt files.
     • AzureAccount: Set this to the name of the Azure Data Lake storage account.
     • AzureAccessKey: Set this to our Azure DataLakeStore Gen 2 storage account access key.
     • TemporaryLocalFolder: Set this to the path, or URI, to the folder that is used to temporarily download SASXpt file(s).

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     		java -jar cdata.jdbc.sasxpt.jar
     		

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   • Set the Driver class name to cdata.jdbc.sasxpt.SASXptDriver. 👁 A configured Database Connection (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Click Test Connection.
6. Set the SQL Query Text to a SQL query to request SAS xpt data. For example:

   SELECT Id, Column1 FROM SampleTable_1 WHERE Column2 = '100'

   👁 Configure the Select object (Salesforce is Shown)
   
7. Add a Transform Message Component to the flow.
8. Set the Output script to the following to convert the payload to JSON:

   %dw 2.0
   output application/json
   ---
   payload
    

   👁 Add the Transform Message Component to the Flow
   
9. To view your SAS xpt data, navigate to the address you configured for the HTTP Connector (localhost:8081 by default): http://localhost:8081. The SAS xpt data is available as JSON in your Web browser and any other tools capable of consuming JSON endpoints.

At this point, you have a simple Web interface for working with SAS xpt data (as JSON data) in custom apps and a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools. Download a free, 30 day trial of the JDBC Driver for SAS xpt and see the CData difference in your Mule Applications today.