Data Sources

Data sources allow for data to be looked up in a centralized fashion. These data sources are always referenced by name so they can differ in production and dev environments - both in parameters and type.

System properties can also be used for the URL, username and password fields:

${external.db.username} ${external.db.password} jdbc:mysql://${external.db.host}/`{.ini}

The properties can then be added to a .properties file in the Papertrail/conf installation folder

JDBC

Connect to any remote database accessible via a JDBC URL examples of which are:

jdbc:mysql://host:3306/{db}

jdbc:sqlserver://host:1433;databaseName={db}

jdbc:postgresql://host:5432/{db}

Parameters can be specified using ${param} syntax (they are escaped to prevent SQL Injection): e.g.

SELECT index1 as name, index2 as value FROM external_table WHERE index3 LIKE '${filter}'

Note the aliasing to name and value is required to correctly render in lookup fields/lists.

Although any parameter can be used, ${filter} is reserved for user entered input.

Local DB

A subtype of JDBC which connects to same database as PaperTrail and can be used to query PaperTrail core tables, import and sync tables, or any other table added to this db.

Node Query

Returns the result of a PQL query - Commonly used for config nodes.

Scripted

Allows groovy script to be executed to return any arbritrary list of data.