Rapidly Develop Alchemy-Driven Apps with Active Query Builder

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Leverage the Active Query Builder SQL interface and .NET data access to create data-driven WinForms and ASP.NET apps backed by Alchemy.

Write standard .NET to expose Alchemy data through an SQL interface: Active Query Builder helps developers write SQL interfaces; the CData ODBC Driver for Alchemy enables standards-based access to Alchemy. This integration uses the Microsoft ADO.NET Provider for ODBC as a bridge between the ODBC Driver and the Active Query Builder objects to build a visual SQL composer.

Connect to Alchemy as an ODBC Data Source

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.

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

Alchemy API Profile Settings

Alchemy uses API key authentication. The API key is supplied in the request URL path. To obtain an API key:

  1. Sign in to your Alchemy account at https://dashboard.alchemy.com.
  2. Open an existing app or create a new one.
  3. Copy the app's API key from the API Key dialog.

After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
  • Network: Optional. The blockchain network slug for NFT API requests (for example, eth-mainnet, base-mainnet, polygon-mainnet). Defaults to eth-mainnet.

Set the following in the ProfileSettings connection property:

  • APIKey: Set this to your Alchemy app API key.

Use SQL to Interact with Alchemy

Follow the steps below to create a WinForms visual query builder.

  1. Open Active Query Builder for .NET WinForms. Opening Active Query Builder.
  2. In the new Windows Forms project go to the "File" menu and click "Connect..."
  3. Under Database Connections, click "Add..." Adding a new Connection.
  4. Set your desired Connection Name (e.g. CData Alchemy), set Connection Type to "ODBC" and locate your previously configured DSN in the "User/System" DSN dropdown. Selecting a previously configured DSN (Amazon Athena is shown).
  5. Click "OK" to save the new connection.
  6. Back in the Database Connection wizard, select the newly created connection and click "OK." A newly added Connection (Amazon Athena is shown).
  7. Click "File" > "New Query" to create a QueryBuilder

You can now build queries visually: Double-click a table in the Columns Pane Area and an entity/relationship diagram is displayed in the Query Building Area. Columns that you select in the diagram are added to the query.

Building queries interactively with Active Query Builder.

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from Alchemy with the API Driver

Connect to Alchemy