How to Connect DBeaver to REST via a JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for REST implements JDBC standards that enable third-party tools to interoperate, from wizards in IDEs to business intelligence tools. This article shows how to connect to REST data with wizards in DBeaver and browse data in the DBeaver GUI.

Create a JDBC Data Source for REST Data

Follow the steps below to load the driver JAR in DBeaver.

1. Open the DBeaver application and, in the "Database" menu, select the "Driver Manager" option. Click "New" to open the "Create new driver" form.
2. In the Settings tab:
   • Set Driver Name to a user-friendly name for the driver (e.g. CData JDBC Driver for REST).
   • Set Class Name to the class name for the JDBC driver: cdata.jdbc.rest.RESTDriver.
   • Set URL Template to jdbc:rest:.
3. In the Libraries tab, click "Add File," navigate to the "lib" folder in the installation directory (C:\Program Files\CData[product_name] XXXX\) and select the JAR file (cdata.jdbc.REST.jar).

Create a Connection to REST Data

Follow the steps below to add credentials and other required connection properties.

1. In the "Database" menu, click "New Database Connection."
2. In the "Connect to a database" wizard that results, select the driver you just created (e.g. CData JDBC Driver for REST) and click "Next >."
3. On the Main tab of the configuration wizard, set the JDBC URL, using the required 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 URI and providing any authentication values, set Format to "XML" or "JSON" and set DataModel to more closely match the data representation to the structure of your data.

   The DataModel 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.

   Below is a typical connection string:

   jdbc:rest:DataModel=Relational;URI=C:/people.xml;Format=XML;
4. Click "Test Connection ..." to ensure you have configured the connection properly.
5. Click "Finish."

Query REST Data

You can now query information from the tables exposed by the connection: Right-click a Table and then click View Table. The data is available on the Data tab.

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