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How to view Dropbox data in RAD Studio Data Explorer using the CData ODBC Driver for Dropbox.
Embarcadero RAD Studio provides a development environment for Delphi and C++Builder applications. With the CData ODBC Driver for Dropbox, you gain access to live Dropbox data within RAD Studio, abstracting the data into tables, views, and stored procedures that can be used to both retrieve and update Dropbox data. This article will walk through connecting to Dropbox using the Data Explorer.
Configure a Connection to Dropbox
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.
Dropbox uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you can use the embedded credentials or register an app with Dropbox.
See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.
Connecting to Dropbox Data Using Data Explorer
You can create a simple application for displaying Dropbox data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for Dropbox and a new VCL Forms Application:
- Open the Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand FireDAC.
- Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
- Click Add New Connection.
- Enter a name for the connection.
- In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for Dropbox.
- Back in the Data Explorer, expand the tables for the connection.
Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a table (for example: Files) onto the form.
- Select the FilesTable object on the form and set the Active property to true.
Right-click on the object, bind visually, and link everything (*) to a new control (TStringGrid).
Arrange the TStringGrid on the form and run the application to see the Files data.
Related Articles
Below you can find other articles for using the CData ODBC Driver with RAD Studio, Delphi, and C++ Builder.