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Natively Connect to Email Data in PHP


The CData ODBC driver for Email enables you to create PHP applications with connectivity to Email data. Leverage the native support for ODBC in PHP.

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

Configure a DSN

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.

The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid credentials. The Server must be specified to retrieve emails and the SMTPServer must be specified to send emails.

Establish a Connection

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Email 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.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC Email Source","user","password"); ... odbc_close($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 Mailboxes WHERE Mailbox = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Email Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Mailboxes WHERE Mailbox = ?"); $success = odbc_execute($query, array('Spam'));

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Email Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Mailbox, RecentMessagesCount FROM Mailboxes");

Process Results

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Email data Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Mailbox, RecentMessagesCount FROM Mailboxes"); while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){ echo $row["Mailbox"] . "\n"; }

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Email data Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Mailboxes WHERE Mailbox = ?"); $success = odbc_execute($query, array('Spam')); if($success) odbc_result_all($query);

More Example Queries

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

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Email Icon Email ODBC Driver

The Email ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live Internet E-mail, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Email data like you would a database - read, write, and send E-mails through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

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