Create a Data Access Object for Todoist 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 Todoist integrates connectivity to live Todoist data in Java applications. By pairing these technologies, you gain simple, programmatic access to Todoist data. This article explains how to build a basic Data Access Object (DAO) and the accompanying code to read Todoist data.

Create a DAO for the Todoist Tasks 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 MyTasksDAO {
 //request specific data from Todoist (String type is used for simplicity)
 @SqlQuery("SELECT Priority FROM Tasks WHERE Completed = :completed")
 String findPriorityByCompleted(@Bind("completed") String completed);

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

Open a Connection to Todoist

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

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Todoist Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Todoist.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Todoist (see below).

Todoist API Profile Settings

To authenticate to Todoist, and connect to your own data or to allow other users to connect to their data, you can use the OAuth standard.

First, register an OAuth application with Todoist. To do so, go to App Management Console, create a new application and configure a valid OAuth redirect URL. Your Oauth application will be assigned a client id and a client secret.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

• AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthClientId: Set this to the client_id that is specified in you app settings.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client_secret that is specified in you app settings.
• CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI that is specified in your app settings

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Todoist 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.

A connection string for Todoist will typically look like the following:

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Todoist.apip;Authscheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackUrl=your_callback_url;

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:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Todoist.apip;Authscheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackUrl=your_callback_url;");
MyTasksDAO dao = dbi.open(MyTasksDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read Todoist Data

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

//disply the result of our 'find' method
String priority = dao.findPriorityByCompleted("false");
System.out.println(priority);

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