Access Zoho Books Data from MySQL in PHP



Connect to Zoho Books through the standard MySQL libraries in PHP.

You can use the CData SQL Gateway and ODBC Driver for Zoho Books to access Zoho Books data from MySQL clients, without needing to perform an ETL or cache data. Follow the steps below to connect to Zoho Books data in real time through PHP's standard MySQL interfaces, mysqli and PDO_MySQL.

Connect to Zoho Books Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

Zoho Books uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties. See the OAuth section of the Getting Started guide in the Help documentation for an authentication guide.

Configure the SQL Gateway

See the SQL Gateway Overview to set up connectivity to Zoho Books data as a virtual MySQL database. You will configure a MySQL remoting service that listens for MySQL requests from clients. The service can be configured in the SQL Gateway UI.

Creating a MySQL Remoting Service in SQL Gateway (Salesforce is shown)

Connect in PHP

The following examples show how to use object-oriented interfaces to connect and execute queries. Initialize the connection object with the following parameters to connect to the virtual MySQL database:

  • Host: Specify the remote host location where the service is running. In this case "localhost" is used for the remote host setting since the service is running on the local machine.
  • Username: Specify the username for a user you authorized on the SQL Gateway's Users tab.
  • Password: Specify the password for the authorized user account.
  • Database Name: Specify the system DSN as the database name.
  • Port: Specify the port the service is running on; port 3306 in this example.

mysqli

<?php
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "user", "password", "CData ZohoBooks Sys","3306");
?>

PDO

<?php
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=CData ZohoBooks Sys;port=3306', 'user', 'password');
?>

Query in PHP

With the connection established, you can then access tables. The following steps walk through the example:

  1. Query the table; for example, INVOICES. The results will be stored as an associative array in the $result object.
  2. Iterate over each row and column, printing the values to display in the PHP page.
  3. Close the connection.

mysqli

$result = $mysqli->query("SELECT InvoiceId, InvoiceNumber FROM INVOICES WHERE CustomerName = 'NewTech Industries'");
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$mysqli->close();

PDO

$result = $pdo->query("SELECT InvoiceId, InvoiceNumber FROM INVOICES WHERE CustomerName = 'NewTech Industries'");
while($row = $result->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$result = null;
$pdo = null;

Ready to get started?

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Zoho Books Icon Zoho Books ODBC Driver

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

Access Zoho Books data like you would a database - read, write, and update Zoho Books Accounts, Bills, Journals, Taxes, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.