LINQ to CleverPush Data

This article illustrates using LINQ to access tables within the CleverPush via the CData ADO.NET Data Provider for CleverPush. To achieve this, we will use LINQ to Entity Framework, which facilitates the generation of connections and can be seamlessly employed with any CData ADO.NET Data Providers to access data through LINQ.

See the help documentation for a guide to setting up an EF 6 project to use the provider.

1. In a new project in Visual Studio, right-click on the project and choose to add a new item. Add an ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
2. Choose EF Designer from Database and click Next.
3. Add a new Data Connection, and change your data source type to "CData CleverPush Data Source".

4. Enter your data source connection information.

   Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Cleverpush Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Cleverpush.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Cleverpush (see below).

   Cleverpush API Profile Settings

   CleverPush uses private API keys to authenticate requests. Your API key is passed as the Authorization request header value on every API call.

   You can find your private API key in the CleverPush dashboard under Settings > API. Use the private key (not the public key) for server-side access.

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

   • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
   • APIKey: Set this to your CleverPush private API key.

   Optional Connection Properties

   • ChannelId: Set this to your default CleverPush channel identifier. Most tables require a channel filter. Setting this property allows queries without specifying ChannelId in every WHERE clause.

   Below is a typical connection string:

   Profile=C:\profiles\Cleverpush.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=my_api_key';


5. If saving your entity connection to App.Config, set an entity name. In this example we are setting APIEntities as our entity connection in App.Config.
6. Enter a model name and select any tables or views you would like to include in the model.

Using the entity you created, you can now perform select commands. For example:

APIEntities context = new APIEntities();

var segmentsQuery = from segments in context.Segments
  select segments;

foreach (var result in segmentsQuery) {
  Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} ", result.Id, result.Id);
}

See "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation for example queries of the supported LINQ.