Using the CData ODBC Driver for Databox in PyCharm

The CData ODBC Drivers can be used in any environment that supports loading an ODBC Driver. In this tutorial we will explore using the CData ODBC Driver for Databox from within PyCharm. Included are steps for adding the CData ODBC Driver as a data source, as well as basic PyCharm code to query the data source and display results.

To begin, this tutorial will assume that you have already installed the CData ODBC Driver for Databox as well as PyCharm.

Add Pyodbc to the Project

Follow the steps below to add the pyodbc module to your project.

1. Click File -> Settings to open the project settings window.
2. Click Project Interpreter from the Project: YourProjectName menu.
3. To add pyodbc, click the + button and enter pyodbc.
4. Click Install Package to install pyodbc.

Connect to Databox

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. See the Getting Started section in the CData driver documentation for a guide to creating a DSN on your OS.

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

Databox API Profile Settings

To use the Databox API, you need to generate a personal access key from your Databox account. Navigate to the Databox account settings under Data Manager and generate an API key (prefixed with pak_).

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

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Databox personal access key.

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData API Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Databox
Description = My Description
Profile = C:\profiles\Databox.apip
AuthScheme = APIKey
ProfileSettings = 'APIKey = your_api_key'

Execute SQL to Databox

Instantiate a Cursor and use the execute method of the Cursor class to execute any SQL statement.

import pyodbc

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for API};Profile = C:\profiles\Databox.apip;AuthScheme = APIKey;ProfileSettings = 'APIKey = your_api_key';')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT Id, Title FROM Datasets WHERE DataSourceId = '4976164'")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
  print(row.Id, row.Title)

After connecting to Databox in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to Databox data as if it were a standard database. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this tutorial, please contact us at [email protected].