Connect to Apache Airflow Data in Ruby

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Connect to Apache Airflow data in Ruby with ruby-dbi, dbd-odbc, and ruby-odbc.

The CData API Driver for ODBC makes it easy to integrate connectivity to live Apache Airflow data in Ruby. This article shows how to create a simple Ruby app that connects to Apache Airflow data, executes a query, and displays the results.

Create an ODBC Connection to Apache Airflow Data

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 ApacheAirflow Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\ApacheAirflow.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for ApacheAirflow (see below).

ApacheAirflow API Profile Settings

Apache Airflow 3 uses JWT Bearer tokens for API authentication. You can generate a token from the Airflow web UI under Settings or via the Airflow CLI using airflow users create and the /api/v2/auth/token endpoint. Note that this profile targets Apache Airflow 3.x using the /api/v2 REST API. The legacy /api/v1 endpoint used by Airflow 2.x is not supported.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
  • APIKey: Set this to your Apache Airflow JWT Bearer token.
  • Server: Set this to the base URL of your Airflow instance (e.g. http://localhost:8080).

Installing Ruby and Necessary Gems

If you do not have Ruby installed, refer to the Ruby installation page. With Ruby installed, you will need to install the ruby-dbi, dbd-odbc, and ruby-odbc gems:


gem install dbi
gem install dbd-odbc
gem install ruby-odbc

Create a Ruby App with Connectivity to Apache Airflow Data

Create a new Ruby file (for example: APISelect.rb) and open it in a text editor. Copy the following code into your file:


#connect to the DSN
require 'dbi'
cnxn = DBI.connect('DBI:ODBC:CData API Source','','')

#execute a SELECT query and store the result set
resultSet = cnxn.execute("SELECT DagRunId, State FROM DagRuns WHERE DagId = 'example_dag'")

#display the names of the columns
resultSet.column_names.each do |name|
  print name, "\t"
end
puts

#display the results
while row = resultSet.fetch do
  (0..resultSet.column_names.size - 1).each do |n|
    print row[n], "\t"
  end
  puts
end
resultSet.finish

#close the connection
cnxn.disconnect if cnxn

With the file completed, you are ready to display your Apache Airflow data with Ruby. To do so, simply run your file from the command line:


ruby APISelect.rb
Writing SQL-92 queries to Apache Airflow allows you to quickly and easily incorporate Apache Airflow data into your own Ruby applications. Download a free trial today!

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