Rapidly Develop Clarifai-Driven Apps with Active Query Builder

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Leverage the Active Query Builder SQL interface and .NET data access to create data-driven WinForms and ASP.NET apps backed by Clarifai.

Write standard .NET to expose Clarifai data through an SQL interface: Active Query Builder helps developers write SQL interfaces; the CData ODBC Driver for Clarifai enables standards-based access to Clarifai. This integration uses the Microsoft ADO.NET Provider for ODBC as a bridge between the ODBC Driver and the Active Query Builder objects to build a visual SQL composer.

Connect to Clarifai as an ODBC Data Source

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

Clarifai API Profile Settings

Clarifai uses Personal Access Tokens (PATs) for authentication. To obtain a PAT:

  1. Log in to your Clarifai account at https://clarifai.com.
  2. Navigate to your profile settings and select Security.
  3. Click Create Personal Access Token.
  4. Select the required scopes and click Create Token.
  5. Copy the generated token (it will only be shown once).

After obtaining your Personal Access Token, set the following connection properties:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.

Set the following in the ProfileSettings connection property:

  • APIKey: Set this to your Clarifai Personal Access Token (PAT).

Use SQL to Interact with Clarifai

Follow the steps below to create a WinForms visual query builder.

  1. Open Active Query Builder for .NET WinForms. Opening Active Query Builder.
  2. In the new Windows Forms project go to the "File" menu and click "Connect..."
  3. Under Database Connections, click "Add..." Adding a new Connection.
  4. Set your desired Connection Name (e.g. CData Clarifai), set Connection Type to "ODBC" and locate your previously configured DSN in the "User/System" DSN dropdown. Selecting a previously configured DSN (Amazon Athena is shown).
  5. Click "OK" to save the new connection.
  6. Back in the Database Connection wizard, select the newly created connection and click "OK." A newly added Connection (Amazon Athena is shown).
  7. Click "File" > "New Query" to create a QueryBuilder

You can now build queries visually: Double-click a table in the Columns Pane Area and an entity/relationship diagram is displayed in the Query Building Area. Columns that you select in the diagram are added to the query.

Building queries interactively with Active Query Builder.

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from Clarifai with the API Driver

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