How to Connect to Oracle Eloqua Reporting Data in Using Python: 6 Steps

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quicker and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData Linux/UNIX ODBC Driver for Oracle Eloqua Reporting and the pyodbc module, you can easily build Oracle Eloqua Reporting-connected Python applications. This article shows how to use the pyodbc built-in functions to connect to Oracle Eloqua Reporting data, execute queries, and output the results.

How to Use the CData ODBC Drivers on UNIX/Linux

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).

1. Install 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

2. Install 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 and 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 Oracle Eloqua Reporting
...

List the Defined Data Source(s)

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

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

cdata.odbc.oracleeloquareporting.ini

...

[Driver]
DriverManagerEncoding = UTF-16

3. Modify 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.

Oracle Eloqua Reporting supports the following authentication methods:

• Basic authentication (User and Password)
• OAuth 2.0 code grant flow
• OAuth 2.0 password grant flow

Basic Authentication (User and Password)

To perform authentication with a user and password, specify these properties:

• AuthScheme: Basic.
• Company: The company name associated with your Oracle Eloqua Reporting account.
• User: Your login account name.
• Password: Your login password.

OAuth Authentication (Code Grant Flow)

To authenticate with the OAuth code grant flow, you must set AuthScheme to OAuth and create a custom OAuth application. For information about how to create a custom OAuth application, see the Help documentation.

Then set the following properties:

• InitiateOAuth: GETANDREFRESH. Used to automatically get and refresh the OAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthClientId: The client Id assigned when you registered your application.
• OAuthClientSecret: The client secret that was assigned when you registered your application.
• CallbackURL: The redirect URI that was defined when you registered your application.

When you connect, the driver opens Oracle Eloqua Reporting's OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application. When the access token expires, the driver refreshes it automatically.

OAuth Authentication (Password Grant Flow)

With the OAuth password grant flow, you can use your OAuth application's credentials alongside your user credentials to authenticate without the need to grant permission manually via a browser prompt. You must create an OAuth app (see the Help documentation) to use this authentication method.

Set the following properties:

• AuthScheme: OAuthPassword
• Company: The company's unique identifier.
• User: Your login account name.
• Password: Your login password.
• OAuthClientId: The client Id assigned when you registered your custom OAuth application.
• OAuthClientSecret: The client secret assigned when you registered your custom OAuth application.

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

[CData OracleEloquaReporting Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Oracle Eloqua Reporting
Description = My Description
AuthScheme = Basic
User = user
Password = password
Company = MyCompany

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

You can follow the procedure below to install pyodbc and start accessing Oracle Eloqua Reporting through Python objects.

4. Install pyodbc

You can use the pip utility to install the module:

pip install pyodbc

Be sure to import with the module with the following:

import pyodbc

5. Connect to Oracle Eloqua Reporting Data

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. Below is the syntax for a connection string:

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for Oracle Eloqua Reporting};AuthScheme=Basic;User=user;Password=password;Company=MyCompany;')

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DSN=CData OracleEloquaReporting Sys;')

6. Execute SQL on Oracle Eloqua Reporting

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

cursor = cnxn.cursor()

Select

You can use fetchall, fetchone, and fetchmany to retrieve Rows returned from SELECT statements:

import pyodbc

cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DSN=CData OracleEloquaReporting Source;User=MyUser;Password=MyPassword')
cursor.execute("SELECT ,  FROM  WHERE  = ''")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
  print(row., row.)

You can provide parameterized queries in a sequence or in the argument list:

cursor.execute(
  "SELECT , 
  FROM 
  WHERE  = ?", '',1)

Metadata Discovery

You can use the getinfo method to retrieve data such as information about the data source and the capabilities of the driver. The getinfo method passes through input to the ODBC SQLGetInfo method.

cnxn.getinfo(pyodbc.SQL_DATA_SOURCE_NAME)

You are now ready to build Python apps in Linux/UNIX environments with connectivity to Oracle Eloqua Reporting data, using the CData ODBC Driver for Oracle Eloqua Reporting.