Create a Data Access Object for Slack Data using JDBI

JDBI is a SQL convenience library for Java that exposes two different style APIs, a fluent style and a SQL object style. The CData JDBC Driver for Slack integrates connectivity to live Slack data in Java applications. By pairing these technologies, you gain simple, programmatic access to Slack data. This article explains how to build a basic Data Access Object (DAO) and the accompanying code to read and write Slack data.

Create a DAO for the Slack Channels Entity

The interface below declares the desired behavior for the SQL object to create a single method for each SQL statement to be implemented.

public interface MyChannelsDAO {
 //insert new data into Slack
 @SqlUpdate("INSERT INTO Channels (IsPublic, Name) values (:isPublic, :name)")
 void insert(@Bind("isPublic") String isPublic, @Bind("name") String name);

 //request specific data from Slack (String type is used for simplicity)
 @SqlQuery("SELECT Name FROM Channels WHERE IsPublic = :isPublic")
 String findNameByIsPublic(@Bind("isPublic") String isPublic);

 /*
 * close with no args is used to close the connection
 */
 void close();
}

Open a Connection to Slack

Collect the necessary connection properties and construct the appropriate JDBC URL for connecting to Slack.

Slack uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties. See the Getting Started section of the help documentation for an authentication guide.

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

java -jar cdata.jdbc.slack.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 connection string for Slack will typically look like the following:

jdbc:slack:OAuthClientId=MyOAuthClientId;OAuthClientSecret=MyOAuthClientSecret;CallbackURL=http://localhost:33333;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;

Use the configured JDBC URL to obtain an instance of the DAO interface. The particular method shown below will open a handle bound to the instance, so the instance needs to be closed explicitly to release the handle and the bound JDBC connection.

DBI dbi = new DBI("jdbc:slack:OAuthClientId=MyOAuthClientId;OAuthClientSecret=MyOAuthClientSecret;CallbackURL=http://localhost:33333;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;");
MyChannelsDAO dao = dbi.open(MyChannelsDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read Slack Data

With the connection open to Slack, simply call the previously defined method to retrieve data from the Channels entity in Slack.

//disply the result of our 'find' method
String name = dao.findNameByIsPublic("True");
System.out.println(name);

Write Slack Data

It is also simple to write data to Slack, using the previously defined method.

//add a new entry to the Channels entity
dao.insert(newIsPublic, newName);

Since the JDBI library is able to work with JDBC connections, you can easily produce a SQL Object API for Slack by integrating with the CData JDBC Driver for Slack. Download a free trial and work with live Slack data in custom Java applications today.