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Natively Connect to BigCommerce Data in PHP


The CData ODBC driver for BigCommerce enables you to create PHP applications with connectivity to BigCommerce data. Leverage the native support for ODBC in PHP.

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for BigCommerce into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build BigCommerce-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to BigCommerce data, execute queries, and output the results.

Configure a DSN

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

BigCommerce authentication is based on the standard OAuth flow. To authenticate, you must initially create an app via the Big Commerce developer platform where you can obtain an OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL. These three parameters will be set as connection properties to your driver.

Additionally, in order to connect to your BigCommerce Store, you will need your StoreId. To find your Store Id please follow these steps:

  1. Log in to your BigCommerce account.
  2. From the Home Page, select Advanced Settings > API Accounts.
  3. Click Create API Account.
  4. A text box named API Path will appear on your screen.
  5. Inside you can see a URL of the following structure: https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/{Store Id}/v3.
  6. As demonstrated above, your Store Id will be between the 'stores/' and '/v3' path paramters.
  7. Once you have retrieved your Store Id you can either click Cancel or proceed in creating an API Account in case you do not have one already.

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to BigCommerce by calling the odbc_connect or odbc_pconnect methods. To close connections, use odbc_close or odbc_close_all.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC BigCommerce Source","user","password");

Connections opened with odbc_connect are closed when the script ends. Connections opened with the odbc_pconnect method are still open after the script ends. This enables other scripts to share that connection when they connect with the same credentials. By sharing connections among your scripts, you can save system resources, and queries execute faster.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC BigCommerce Source","user","password"); ... odbc_close($conn); //persistent connection must be closed explicitly

Create Prepared Statements

Create prepared statements and parameterized queries with the odbc_prepare function.

$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE FirstName = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC BigCommerce Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE FirstName = ?"); $success = odbc_execute($query, array('Bob'));

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC BigCommerce Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT FirstName, LastName FROM Customers WHERE FirstName = 'Bob'");

Process Results

Access a row in the result set as an array with the odbc_fetch_array function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC BigCommerce data Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT FirstName, LastName FROM Customers WHERE FirstName = 'Bob'"); while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){ echo $row["FirstName"] . "\n"; }

Display the result set in an HTML table with the odbc_result_all function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC BigCommerce data Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE FirstName = ?"); $success = odbc_execute($query, array('Bob')); if($success) odbc_result_all($query);

More Example Queries

You will find complete information on the driver's supported SQL in the help documentation. The code examples above are BigCommerce-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the BigCommerce ODBC Driver to get started:

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Learn more:

BigCommerce Icon BigCommerce ODBC Driver

The BigCommerce ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from BigCommerce, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access BigCommerce data like you would a database - read, write, and update BigCommerce Customers, Products, Orders, Transactions, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

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