Natively Connect to HCL Domino Data in PHP

Create PHP applications on Linux/UNIX machines with connectivity to HCL Domino data. Leverage the native support for ODBC in PHP.

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for HCL Domino into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build HCL Domino-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to HCL Domino data, execute queries, and output the results.

Using the CData ODBC Drivers on a UNIX/Linux Machine

The CData ODBC Drivers are supported in various Red Hat-based and Debian-based systems, including Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, CentOS, and Fedora. There are also several libraries and packages that are required, many of which may be installed by default, depending on your system. For more information on the supported versions of Linux operating systems and the required libraries, please refer to the "Getting Started" section in the help documentation (installed and found online).

Installing the Driver Manager

Before installing the driver, check that your system has a driver manager. For this article, you will use unixODBC, a free and open source ODBC driver manager that is widely supported.

For Debian-based systems like Ubuntu, you can install unixODBC with the APT package manager:


$ sudo apt-get install unixodbc unixodbc-dev

For systems based on Red Hat Linux, you can install unixODBC with yum or dnf:


$ sudo yum install unixODBC unixODBC-devel

The unixODBC driver manager reads information about drivers from an odbcinst.ini file and about data sources from an odbc.ini file. You can determine the location of the configuration files on your system by entering the following command into a terminal:


$ odbcinst -j

The output of the command will display the locations of the configuration files for ODBC data sources and registered ODBC drivers. User data sources can only be accessed by the user account whose home folder the odbc.ini is located in. System data sources can be accessed by all users. Below is an example of the output of this command:


DRIVERS............: /etc/odbcinst.ini
SYSTEM DATA SOURCES: /etc/odbc.ini
FILE DATA SOURCES..: /etc/ODBCDataSources
USER DATA SOURCES..: /home/myuser/.odbc.ini
SQLULEN Size.......: 8
SQLLEN Size........: 8
SQLSETPOSIROW Size.: 8

Installing the Driver

You can download the driver in standard package formats: the Debian .deb package format or the .rpm file format. Once you have downloaded the file, you can install the driver from the terminal.

The driver installer registers the driver with unixODBC and creates a system DSN, which can be used later in any tools or applications that support ODBC connectivity.

For Debian-based systems like Ubuntu, run the following command with sudo or as root: $ dpkg -i /path/to/package.deb

For Red Hat systems or other systems that support .rpms, run the following command with sudo or as root: $ rpm -i /path/to/package.rpm

Once the driver is installed, you can list the registered drivers and defined data sources using the unixODBC driver manager:

List the Registered Driver(s)


$ odbcinst -q -d
CData ODBC Driver for HCL Domino
...

List the Defined Data Source(s)


$ odbcinst -q -s
CData Domino Source
...

To use the CData ODBC Driver for HCL Domino with unixODBC, ensure that the driver is configured to use UTF-16. To do so, edit the INI file for the driver (cdata.odbc.domino.ini), which can be found in the lib folder in the installation location (typically /opt/cdata/cdata-odbc-driver-for-domino), as follows:

cdata.odbc.domino.ini


...

[Driver]
DriverManagerEncoding = UTF-16

Modifying the DSN

The driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties. Additionally, you can create user-specific DSNs that will not require root access to modify in $HOME/.odbc.ini.

Connecting to Domino

To connect to Domino data, set the following properties:

URL: The host name or IP of the server hosting the Domino database. Include the port of the server hosting the Domino database. For example: http://sampleserver:1234/
DatabaseScope: The name of a scope in the Domino Web UI. The driver exposes forms and views for the schema governed by the specified scope. In the Domino Admin UI, select the Scopes menu in the sidebar. Set this property to the name of an existing scope.

Authenticating with Domino

Domino supports authenticating via login credentials or an Azure Active Directory OAuth application:

Login Credentials

To authenticate with login credentials, set the following properties:

AuthScheme: Set this to "OAuthPassword"
User: The username of the authenticating Domino user
Password: The password associated with the authenticating Domino user

The driver uses the login credentials to automatically perform an OAuth token exchange.

AzureAD

This authentication method uses Azure Active Directory as an IdP to obtain a JWT token. You need to create a custom OAuth application in Azure Active Directory and configure it as an IdP. To do so, follow the instructions in the Help documentation. Then set the following properties:

AuthScheme: Set this to "AzureAD"
InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
OAuthClientId: The Client ID obtained when setting up the custom OAuth application.
OAuthClientSecret: The Client secret obtained when setting up the custom OAuth application.
CallbackURL: The redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: https://localhost:33333
AzureTenant: The Microsoft Online tenant being used to access data. Supply either a value in the form companyname.microsoft.com or the tenant ID.

The tenant ID is the same as the directory ID shown in the Azure Portal's Azure Active Directory > Properties page.

/etc/odbc.ini or $HOME/.odbc.ini


[CData Domino Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for HCL Domino
Description = My Description
Server = https://domino.corp.com
AuthScheme = OAuthPassword
User = my_domino_user
Password = my_domino_password

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to HCL Domino by calling the odbc_connect or odbc_pconnect methods. To close connections, use odbc_close or odbc_close_all.


$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Domino Source","user","password");

Connections opened with odbc_connect are closed when the script ends. Connections opened with the odbc_pconnect method are still open after the script ends. This enables other scripts to share that connection when they connect with the same credentials. By sharing connections among your scripts, you can save system resources and queries execute faster.


$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC Domino Source","user","password");
...
odbc_close($conn); //persistent connection must be closed explicitly

Create Prepared Statements

Create prepared statements and parameterized queries with the odbc_prepare function.


$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM ByName WHERE City = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.


$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Domino Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM ByName WHERE City = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('Miami'));

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.


$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Domino Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Name, Address FROM ByName WHERE City = 'Miami'");

Process Results

Access a row in the result set as an array with the odbc_fetch_array function.


$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC HCL Domino data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Name, Address FROM ByName WHERE City = 'Miami'");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
 echo $row["Name"] . "\n";
}

Display the result set in an HTML table with the odbc_result_all function.


$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC HCL Domino data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM ByName WHERE City = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('Miami'));
if($success)
  odbc_result_all($query);

More Example Queries

You will find complete information on the SQL queries supported by the driver in the help documentation. The code examples above are HCL Domino-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the HCL Domino ODBC Driver to get started:

Download Now

Learn more:

HCL Domino ODBC Driver

The HCL Domino ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from HCL Domino, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access HCL Domino data like you would a database - read, write, and update HCL Domino FALSE, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

CData Software is a leading provider of data access and connectivity solutions. Our standards-based connectors streamline data access and insulate customers from the complexities of integrating with on-premise or cloud databases, SaaS, APIs, NoSQL, and Big Data.

Connect With Us

Get Started

Data Connectors

ETL/ ELT Solutions

Cloud & API Connectivity

OEM & Custom Drivers