Viewing Exa Data in RAD Studio Data Explorer

Embarcadero RAD Studio provides a development environment for Delphi and C++Builder applications. With the CData ODBC Driver for Exa, you gain access to live Exa data within RAD Studio, abstracting the data into tables, views, and stored procedures that can be used to both retrieve Exa data. This article will walk through connecting to Exa using the Data Explorer.

Configure a Connection to Exa

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.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Exa Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Exa.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Exa (see below).

Exa API Profile Settings

Visit dashboard.exa.ai, sign in or create an account, and generate an API key from your API settings.

Connecting to Exa Data Using Data Explorer

You can create a simple application for displaying Exa data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for Exa and a new VCL Forms Application:

1. Open the Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand FireDAC.
2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
3. Click Add New Connection.
4. Enter a name for the connection.
5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for Exa.
6. Back in the Data Explorer, expand the views for the connection.

7. Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a view (for example: Answer) onto the form.

   
8. Select the AnswerView object on the form and set the Active property to true.

9. Right-click on the object, bind visually, and link everything (*) to a new control (TStringGrid).

   

10. Arrange the TStringGrid on the form and run the application to see the Answer data.

    

Related Articles

Below you can find other articles for using the CData ODBC Driver with RAD Studio, Delphi, and C++ Builder.

• DataBind Controls to Exa Data in C++Builder
• DataBind Controls to Exa Data in Delphi
• Build a Simple VCL Application for Exa Data