Natively Connect to Browserless Data in PHP

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for Browserless into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build Browserless-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to Browserless 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.

Browserless uses HTTP API token authentication. Your Browserless API token is sent as the token query parameter on every request. You can generate or view your token in the Browserless dashboard at https://account.browserless.io/.

Using ApiKey Authentication

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

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Browserless API token.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\Browserless.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings="ApiKey=your_api_token";

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to Browserless 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 Map WHERE Url = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Map WHERE Url = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('https://www.example.com'));
  

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT ,  FROM Map WHERE Url = 'https://www.example.com'");
  

Process Results

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Browserless data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT ,  FROM Map WHERE Url = 'https://www.example.com'");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
 echo $row[""] . "\n";
}

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Browserless data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Map WHERE Url = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('https://www.example.com'));
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 Browserless-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.