Viewing Carbone Data in RAD Studio Data Explorer

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

Configure a Connection to Carbone

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

Carbone API Profile Settings

Carbone uses API key authentication via a Bearer token in the Authorization header. To obtain an API key:

1. Log in to your Carbone account at https://account.carbone.io
2. Copy the API key shown on the account home page

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

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Carbone API key (Bearer token).
• CarboneVersion: (Optional) The major version of the Carbone API to target via the carbone-version request header. Defaults to 5. Accepted values: 5, 4, 3, staging.

Connecting to Carbone Data Using Data Explorer

You can create a simple application for displaying Carbone data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for Carbone 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 Carbone.
6. Back in the Data Explorer, expand the views for the connection.

7. Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a view (for example: Templates) onto the form.

   
8. Select the TemplatesView 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 Templates data.

    

Related Articles

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

• DataBind Controls to Carbone Data in C++Builder
• DataBind Controls to Carbone Data in Delphi
• Build a Simple VCL Application for Carbone Data