Use a Database Connection in Your Integration¶

Devant allows you to share and reuse Devant-managed databases, accelerating development and enhancing efficiency in building integrated applications through connections.

For step-by-step instructions on creating a database connection, see Create a Connection.

To learn more about Devant Connections, see the documentation on Connections.

Consume a database through a connection¶

To consume a Devant-managed database via a connection, follow these steps:

Step 1: Add connection configurations¶

To integrate a database into your application, click the appropriate tab below based on your current configuration file and follow the step-by-step instructions:

Component.yaml file (v1.1)Component.yaml file (v1.0)Component-config.yaml file

Copy and paste the snippet from the developer guide into the component.yaml file.

The following is a sample snippet:
```
dependencies:
    connectionReferences:
    - name: <CONNECTION_NAME>
      resourceRef: <RESOURCE_IDENTIFIER>
```
Field Description

name The name given to the connection.

resourceRef A unique, readable identifier of the database being connected to.

If you've previously added a connectionReferences section under dependencies, append this as another item under connectionReferences. Upon deploying the integration, the necessary configurations to establish the connection will be injected into Devant-defined environment variables.

The following table details the Devant-defined environment variables:

Configuration Key	Devant-Defined Environment Variable Name
HostName	DEVANT_<CONNECTION_NAME>_HOSTNAME
Port	DEVANT_<CONNECTION_NAME>_PORT
Username	DEVANT_<CONNECTION_NAME>_USERNAME
Password	DEVANT_<CONNECTION_NAME>_PASSWORD
DatabaseName	DEVANT_<CONNECTION_NAME>DATABASENAME

If you'd like to use custom environment variable names instead of the Devant-defined ones, add the dependency as a service reference under dependencies in the same file. For more details, refer to the instructions under the component.yaml file (v1.0) tab.

The following table provides details on the configuration keys associated with the connection:

Name	Type	Description	Optional	Sensitive
HostName	string	Hostname of the database server	false	false
Port	string	Port of the database server	false	false
Username	string	Username of the database server	false	false
Password	string	Password of the database server	false	true
DatabaseName	string	Name of the database	false	false

Step 2: Read configurations within the application¶

Once you add the connection configuration snippet, you can proceed to read those configurations within your application. The steps to follow depend on the programming language you are using.

The following is a sample code snippet in NodeJS:

const hostName = process.env.DEVANT_<CONNECTION_NAME>_HOSTNAME;

Note

The component.yaml v1.0 file is considered legacy. For new integrations, we recommend using the latest version, component.yaml v1.1, which offers enhanced usability and features.

Copy and paste the snippet from the developer guide into the component.yaml file.

The following is a sample snippet:

dependencies:
    serviceReferences:
    - name: database:<DATABASE_NAME>
      connectionConfig: <CONNECTION_ID>
      env:
      - from: HostName
        to: <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE>
      - from: Port
        to: <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE>
      - from: Username
        to: <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE>
      - from: Password
        to: <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE>
      - from: DatabaseName
        to: <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE>

Field	Description
name	The name of the database you are connecting to.
connectionConfig	The unique connection identifier for the connection.
env	The environment variable mapping.
from	The key of the configuration entry.
to	The environment variable name to which Devant will inject the value of the key.

Replace <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE> with an appropriate environment variable name of your choice. If you have previously added a service reference section under dependencies, append this as another item under serviceReferences.

Upon deploying the integration, Devant automatically populates the specified environment variables with actual values.

The following table provides details on the configuration keys associated with the connection:

Name	Type	Description	Optional	Sensitive
HostName	string	Hostname of the database server	false	false
Port	string	Port of the database server	false	false
Username	string	Username of the database server	false	false
Password	string	Password of the database server	false	true
DatabaseName	string	Name of the database	false	false

Step 2: Read configurations within the application

Once you add the connection configuration snippet, you can proceed to read those configurations within your application. The steps to follow depend on the programming language you are using.

The following is a sample code snippet in NodeJS:

const hostName = process.env.HOSTNAME;

Note

The component-config.yaml file is considered legacy. For new integrations, we recommend using the latest version, component.yaml v1.1, which offers enhanced usability and features.

Copy and paste the snippet from the developer guide into the component-config file under the spec section.

The following is a sample snippet:

outbound:
    serviceReferences:
    - name: database:<DATABASE_NAME>
      connectionConfig: <CONNECTION_ID>
      env:
      - from: HostName
        to: <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE>
      - from: Port
        to: <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE>
      - from: Username
        to: <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE>
      - from: Password
        to: <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE>
      - from: DatabaseName
        to: <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE>

Field	Description
name	The name of the database you are connecting to.
connectionConfig	The unique connection identifier for the connection.
env	The environment variable mapping.
from	The key of the configuration entry.
to	The environment variable name to which Devant will inject the value of the key.

Replace <YOUR_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME_HERE> with an appropriate environment variable name of your choice. If you have previously added an outbound service reference, append this as another item under serviceReferences.

Upon deploying the integration, Devant automatically populates the specified environment variables with actual values.

The following table provides details on the configuration keys associated with the connection:

Name	Type	Description	Optional	Sensitive
HostName	string	Hostname of the database server	false	false
Port	string	Port of the database server	false	false
Username	string	Username of the database server	false	false
Password	string	Password of the database server	false	true
DatabaseName	string	Name of the database	false	false

Step 2: Read configurations within the application

Once you add the connection configuration snippet, you can proceed to read those configurations within your application. The steps to follow depend on the programming language you are using.

The following is a sample code snippet in NodeJS:

const hostName = process.env.HOSTNAME;

Step 3: Initiate a database connection¶

To initiate a connection to the database, follow these steps:

In this example, you will connect to a MySQL database.

Step 3.1: Install the required packages

For the MySQL database, install the mysql2 package using npm:

// Install the mysql2 package
npm install mysql2

Step 3.2: Import required packages

const client = require('mysql2')

Step 3.3: Establish a connection

To establish the connection, use the environment variables for hostName, username, password, databaseName, and port as follows:

var connection = client.createConnection({
      host: hostName,
      user: username,
      password: password,
      database: databaseName,
      port: port
});

connection.connect((err) => {
      if (err) {
          return;
      }
      // Connection is successful
});

By following these steps, your integration can interact with the Devant-managed database seamlessly.

Field	Description
name	The name given to the connection.
resourceRef	A unique, readable identifier of the database being connected to.