JDBC Driver for Arrow Flight SQL

The JDBC driver for Arrow Flight SQL is an open-source driver that is based on the specifications for the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) API. However, the Flight JDBC driver uses Apache Arrow, so it is able to move large amounts of data faster, in part because it does not need to serialize and then deserialize data.

This driver solves a problem that is common to many BI tools that access databases through JDBC. These tools bundle a different JDBC driver for each type of database they support, because each of these databases has their own proprietary driver. Bundling multiple JDBC drivers for multiple databases can be difficult to maintain, and responding to support issues for multiple drivers can be costly. Now, provided that a database has an Apache Arrow Flight SQL endpoint enabled, the JDBC driver for Arrow Flight SQL can connect to it.

Prerequisites for Using the JDBC Driver for Arrow Flight SQL

• Java 1.8 or later
• One of the following operating systems: Windows, MacOS, or Linux

Downloading the JDBC Driver for Arrow Flight SQL

You can download the driver here.

Integrating the JDBC Driver for Arrow Flight SQL

To integrate the driver into your development environment, add it to your classpath.

Name of the Class

The name of the class is org.apache.arrow.driver.jdbc.ArrowFlightJdbcDriver.

Connecting to Databases

• Use this template to create a direct connection to a database that has enabled an Apache Arrow Flight SQL endpoint:

  Create direct connection to database

  jdbc:arrow-flight-sql://<hostname-or-IP-address>:<port-number>/?useEncryption=false[&schema=<optional_schema>][&<properties>]
  

  • <optional_schema>: The name of the schema (datasource or space, including child paths, such as myDatasource.folder1 and mySpace.folder1.folder2) to use by default when a schema is not specified in a query.
  • <properties>: A list of JDBC properties. Values must be URI-encoded.

• Use this template to create a direct connection to a Dremio coordinator node:

  Create direct connection to Dremio coordinator node

  jdbc:arrow-flight-sql://<Dremio_coordinator>:32010[/?schema=<optional_schema>][&<properties>]
  

  • <Dremio_coordinator>: The hostname or IP address of the coordinator node in your Dremio cluster.
  • <optional_schema>: The name of the schema (datasource or space, including child paths, such as myDatasource.folder1 and mySpace.folder1.folder2) to use by default when a schema is not specified in a query.
  • <properties>: A list of JDBC properties.

Supported Authentication Methods

To authenticate to Dremio, use either of these methods:

• Pass in a username and password with the user and password properties.
• Pass in a username and personal access token (PAT) with the user and password properties. Use the PAT as the value of the password property. See Personal Access Tokens for information about enabling the use of PATs in Dremio and about creating PATs. You must URL-encode PATs that you include in JDBC URLs. To encode a PAT locally on your system, you can follow these steps:
  1. In a browser window, right-click an empty area of the page and select Inspect.
  2. Click Console.
  3. Type encodeURIComponent("<PAT>"), where <PAT> is the personal access token that you obtained from Dremio. The URL-encoded PAT appears in red on the next line. You can highlight it and copy it to your clipboard.

JDBC Properties for Dremio Wire Encryption

If you are setting up encrypted communication between your JDBC client applications and the Dremio server, use the SSL JDBC connection parameters and fully qualified hostname to configure the JDBC connection string and connect to Dremio.

Managing Workloads

Dremio administrators can use the Arrow Flight server endpoint to manage query workloads by adding the following properties to connections created by Flight clients:

URL-encoding Values

To encode a personal access token (PAT) or property value locally on your system, you can follow these steps:

1. In a browser window, right-click an empty area of the page and select Inspect.
2. Click Console.
3. Type encodeURIComponent("<PAT-or-value>"), where <PAT-or-value> is the personal access token that you obtained from Dremio or the value of a supported JDBC property. The URL-encoded PAT or value appears on the next line. You can highlight it and copy it to your clipboard.

Differences Between the JDBC Driver for Arrow Flight SQL and the legacy Dremio JDBC Driver

The JDBC driver for Arrow Flight SQL adds these features:

• Support for ResultSet.getBoolean() on varchar columns in which boolean values are represented as these strings: “0”, “1”, “true”, “false”.

• Support for null calendar in calls to ResultSet.getDate(), ResultSet.getTime(), and ResultSet.getTimestamp()
  When a call to one of these methods has no Calendar parameter, or the Calendar parameter is null, the Flight JDBC driver uses the default timezone when it constructs the returned object.

• Support for ResultSet.getDate(), ResultSet.getTime(), and ResultSet.getTimestamp() on varchar columns in which dates, times, or timestamps are represented as strings.

• Support for varchar data that represents numeric values in calls to ResultSet.getInteger(), ResultSet.getFloat(), ResultSet.getDouble(), ResultSet.getShort(), ResultSet.getLong(), and ResultSet.getBigDecimal()
  

• Support for integer values in calls to getFloat()
  Integers returned gain one decimal place.

• Support for the native SQL complex types List, Map, and Struct
  Dremio’s legacy JDBC driver uses String representations of these types.

• Support for using the Interval data type in SQL functions

The JDBC driver for Arrow Flight SQL removes support for calling ResultSet.getBinaryStream() on non-binary data types. Though such support exists in traditional JDBC drivers, it is not in the specification for the JDBC API.

Limitations

Neither impersonation nor parameterized queries are supported.

Supported Conversions from Dremio Datatypes to JDBC Datatypes