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The CSV ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live flat-file delimited data (CSV/TSV files), directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access flat-file data like you would any standard database - read, write, and update etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

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Import Real-Time CSV Data in ColdFusion to Build Applications


Use CData ODBC drivers to import and use CSV data in ColdFusion.

Adobe ColdFusion is a web and mobile application development platform. It uses its own scripting language, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), to create data-driven websites as well as generate remote services, such as REST. When ColdFusion is paired with the CData ODBC Driver for CSV, you can link your ColdFusion web and mobile applications to operational CSV data. This allows for your applications to be more robust and complete. This article details how to use the ODBC driver to create a table populated with CSV data from within a ColdFusion markup file.

To follow along with this tutorial, you need to install the CData ODBC Driver for CSV and Adobe ColdFusion.

Configuring the Connection

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 process. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

The DataSource property must be set to a valid local folder name.

Also, specify the IncludeFiles property to work with text files having extensions that differ from .csv, .tab, or .txt. Specify multiple file extensions in a comma-separated list. You can also set Extended Properties compatible with the Microsoft Jet OLE DB 4.0 driver. Alternatively, you can provide the format of text files in a Schema.ini file.

Set UseRowNumbers to true if you are deleting or updating in CSV. This will create a new column with the name RowNumber which will be used as key for that table.

Adding a Data Source and Creating a Table

After creating a DSN, follow the steps below to add a new data source, test our connection to it, create a ColdFusion markup file, and, finally, import CSV CSV data and display it in a table in ColdFusion:

  1. From the ColdFusion administrator interface, choose Data & Services.
  2. Here, click "Add New Data Source". The data source name can be any name, provided it conforms to the ColdFusion variable naming conventions. For our ODBC driver, choose "ODBC Socket", then click the "Add" button.
  3. From the ODBC DSN Dropdown menu select CData CSV Sys. Under the Advanced Settings section, leave the Connection String blank. Note that any properties specified in this input field will override the ones specified in the DSN Configuration.
  4. Now, test the connection by pressing the check mark to the left of the CDataCSVODBC data source you just created. When the data source reports an "OK" status, it is ready for use.
  5. Next, create a new ColdFusion Markup file (.cfm) and place it in the wwwroot directory ("C:\ColdFusion2021\cfusion\wwwroot") for ColdFusion.

    The following code queries the data source: 

                
        <cfquery name="CSVQuery" dataSource="CDataCSVODBC"> 
          SELECT * FROM Customer 
        </cfquery>
    And a CFTable can be used to quickly output the table in HTML: 
                
          <cftable  
          query = "CSVQuery" 
          border = "1" 
          colHeaders 
          colSpacing = "2" 
          headerLines = "2" 
          HTMLTable 
          maxRows = "500" 
          startRow = "1"> 

          <cfcol header="<b>City</b>" align="Left" width=2 text="City"/> 

          <cfcol header="<b>TotalDue</b>" align="Left" width=15 text="TotalDue"/> 

          ...

        </cftable>
    Full code, including the HTML portion is available below: 
                
        <html> 
        <head><title>CData Software | CSV Customer Table Demo </title></head> 
        <body> 
        <cfoutput>#ucase("CSV Customer Table Demo")#</cfoutput> 
        <cfquery name="CSVQuery" dataSource="CDataCSVODBC"> 

          SELECT * FROM Customer 

        </cfquery> 
        <cftable  
          query = "CSVQuery" 
          border = "1" 
          colHeaders 
          colSpacing = "2" 
          headerLines = "2" 
          HTMLTable 
          maxRows = "500" 
          startRow = "1"> 
          <cfcol header="<b>City</b>" align="Left" width=2 text="City"/> 

          <cfcol header="<b>TotalDue</b>" align="Left" width=15 text="TotalDue"/> 

          ...

        </cftable> 
        </body> 

        </html>
  6. Finally, run the code in a browser. It produces a table populated with CSV data!

As a note, the CData ODBC Drivers also support parameterized queries using the cfqueryparam element. For example: SELECT * FROM Account WHERE name =

Get Started Today

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for CSV and start building CSV-connected applications with Adobe ColdFusion. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.