Viewing AlloyDB Data in RAD Studio Data Explorer



How to view AlloyDB data in RAD Studio Data Explorer using the CData ODBC Driver for AlloyDB.

Embarcadero RAD Studio provides a development environment for Delphi and C++Builder applications. With the CData ODBC Driver for AlloyDB, you gain access to live AlloyDB data within RAD Studio, abstracting the data into tables, views, and stored procedures that can be used to both retrieve and update AlloyDB data. This article will walk through connecting to AlloyDB using the Data Explorer.

Configure a Connection to AlloyDB

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.

The following connection properties are usually required in order to connect to AlloyDB.

  • Server: The host name or IP of the server hosting the AlloyDB database.
  • User: The user which will be used to authenticate with the AlloyDB server.
  • Password: The password which will be used to authenticate with the AlloyDB server.

You can also optionally set the following:

  • Database: The database to connect to when connecting to the AlloyDB Server. If this is not set, the user's default database will be used.
  • Port: The port of the server hosting the AlloyDB database. This property is set to 5432 by default.

Authenticating with Standard Authentication

Standard authentication (using the user/password combination supplied earlier) is the default form of authentication.

No further action is required to leverage Standard Authentication to connect.

Authenticating with pg_hba.conf Auth Schemes

There are additional methods of authentication available which must be enabled in the pg_hba.conf file on the AlloyDB server.

Find instructions about authentication setup on the AlloyDB Server here.

Authenticating with MD5 Authentication

This authentication method must be enabled by setting the auth-method in the pg_hba.conf file to md5.

Authenticating with SASL Authentication

This authentication method must be enabled by setting the auth-method in the pg_hba.conf file to scram-sha-256.

Authenticating with Kerberos

The authentication with Kerberos is initiated by AlloyDB Server when the ∏ is trying to connect to it. You should set up Kerberos on the AlloyDB Server to activate this authentication method. Once you have Kerberos authentication set up on the AlloyDB Server, see the Kerberos section of the help documentation for details on how to authenticate with Kerberos.

Connecting to AlloyDB Data Using Data Explorer

You can create a simple application for displaying AlloyDB data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for AlloyDB and a new VCL Forms Application:

  1. Open the Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand FireDAC.
  2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
  3. Click Add New Connection.
  4. Enter a name for the connection.
  5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for AlloyDB.
  6. Back in the Data Explorer, expand the tables for the connection.
  7. Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a table (for example: Orders) onto the form.

  8. Select the OrdersTable object on the form and set the Active property to true.
  9. Right-click on the object, bind visually, and link everything (*) to a new control (TStringGrid).

  10. Arrange the TStringGrid on the form and run the application to see the Orders data.

Related Articles

Below you can find other articles for using the CData ODBC Driver with RAD Studio, Delphi, and C++ Builder.

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

Access AlloyDB data like you would a database - read, write, and update AlloyDB 0, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.