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Connect to live data from Drift with the API Driver

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Using the CData ODBC Driver for Drift in PyCharm



Connect to Drift as an ODBC data source in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver for Drift.

The CData ODBC Drivers can be used in any environment that supports loading an ODBC Driver. In this tutorial we will explore using the CData ODBC Driver for Drift from within PyCharm. Included are steps for adding the CData ODBC Driver as a data source, as well as basic PyCharm code to query the data source and display results.

To begin, this tutorial will assume that you have already installed the CData ODBC Driver for Drift as well as PyCharm.

Add Pyodbc to the Project

Follow the steps below to add the pyodbc module to your project.

  1. Click File -> Settings to open the project settings window.
  2. Click Project Interpreter from the Project: YourProjectName menu.
  3. To add pyodbc, click the + button and enter pyodbc.
  4. Click Install Package to install pyodbc.

Connect to Drift

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. See the Getting Started section in the CData driver documentation for a guide to creating a DSN on your OS.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Drift Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Drift.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Drift (see below).

Drift API Profile Settings

Drift uses OAuth-based authentication.

You must first register an application here: https://dev.drift.com. Your app will be assigned a client ID and a client secret. Set these in your connection string via the OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret properties. More information on setting up an OAuth application can be found at https://devdocs.drift.com/docs/.

After setting the following options in the ProfileSettings connection property, you are ready to connect:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
  • OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client Id that is specified in your app settings.
  • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to Client Secret that is specified in your app settings.
  • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.
  • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData API Source] Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Drift Description = My Description Profile = C:\profiles\Drift.apip Authscheme = OAuth OAuthClientId = your_client_id OAuthClientSecret = your_client_secret CallbackUrl = your_callback_url

Execute SQL to Drift

Instantiate a Cursor and use the execute method of the Cursor class to execute any SQL statement.

import pyodbc cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for API};Profile = C:\profiles\Drift.apip;Authscheme = OAuth;OAuthClientId = your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret = your_client_secret;CallbackUrl = your_callback_url;') cursor = cnxn.cursor() cursor.execute("SELECT Id, DisplayName FROM Contacts WHERE LastName = 'Stark'") rows = cursor.fetchall() for row in rows: print(row.Id, row.DisplayName)

After connecting to Drift in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to Drift data as if it were a standard database. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this tutorial, please contact us at support@cdata.com.