Using the CData ODBC Driver for Discourse in PyCharm

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Connect to Discourse as an ODBC data source in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver for Discourse.

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 Discourse 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 Discourse 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 Discourse

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.

The Discourse API uses API Key authentication.

Using API Key Authentication

Discourse requires API Key and Username for authentication. API Keys are generated in the Discourse Admin panel under the API section. You can create user-specific API keys or all-users API keys. Once you have obtained the API Key, set it along with the Domain and Username in the ProfileSettings connection property.

Example Connection string

Profile=C:\profiles\Discourse.apip;ProfileSettings='Domain=forum.example.com;APIKey=your_api_key;Username=your_username;'AuthScheme=APIKey;

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData API Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Discourse
Description = My Description
Profile = C:\profiles\Discourse.apip
ProfileSettings = 'Domain = forum.example.com
APIKey = your_api_key
Username = your_username
'AuthScheme = APIKey

Execute SQL to Discourse

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\Discourse.apip;ProfileSettings = 'Domain = forum.example.com;APIKey = your_api_key;Username = your_username;'AuthScheme = APIKey;')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT ,  FROM Backups WHERE  = ''")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
  print(row., row.)

After connecting to Discourse in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to Discourse 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].

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from Discourse with the API Driver

Connect to Discourse