Natively Connect to Browse AI Data in PHP

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for Browse AI into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build Browse AI-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to Browse AI data, execute queries, and output the results.

Configure a DSN

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

BrowseAI API Profile Settings

BrowseAI is a web scraping and automation platform that allows you to train robots to extract and monitor data from websites. Authentication is performed using an API key that is sent as a Bearer token in the Authorization header.

The BrowseAI API key has the format {userId}:{apiKey}, where both parts are UUIDs separated by a colon. This full string is provided as a single value in the BrowseAI dashboard.

To obtain your API key:

1. Log in to your BrowseAI account at https://app.browse.ai
2. Navigate to Settings in the dashboard
3. Locate the API section
4. Copy the full API key string displayed (format: userId:apiKey)

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

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.

Set the following in the ProfileSettings connection property:

• APIKey: Set this to your BrowseAI API key (format: userId:apiKey).

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to Browse AI by calling the odbc_connect or odbc_pconnect methods. To close connections, use odbc_close or odbc_close_all.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");

Connections opened with odbc_connect are closed when the script ends. Connections opened with the odbc_pconnect method are still open after the script ends. This enables other scripts to share that connection when they connect with the same credentials. By sharing connections among your scripts, you can save system resources, and queries execute faster.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
...
odbc_close($conn); //persistent connection must be closed explicitly

Create Prepared Statements

Create prepared statements and parameterized queries with the odbc_prepare function.

$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM RobotTasks WHERE RobotId = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM RobotTasks WHERE RobotId = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('your-robot-id'));
  

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, Status FROM RobotTasks WHERE RobotId = 'your-robot-id'");
  

Process Results

Access a row in the result set as an array with the odbc_fetch_array function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Browse AI data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, Status FROM RobotTasks WHERE RobotId = 'your-robot-id'");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
 echo $row["Id"] . "\n";
}

Display the result set in an HTML table with the odbc_result_all function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Browse AI data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM RobotTasks WHERE RobotId = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('your-robot-id'));
if($success)
  odbc_result_all($query);

More Example Queries

You will find complete information on the driver's supported SQL in the help documentation. The code examples above are Browse AI-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.