Natively Connect to Foursquare Data in PHP

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for Foursquare into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build Foursquare-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to Foursquare 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.

Using API Key Authentication

Foursquare Places API uses Service Key (Bearer token) authentication. To obtain a Service Key:

1. Go to the Foursquare Developer Console at https://foursquare.com/developers/
2. Create a new project or select an existing one
3. Navigate to the API Keys section
4. Generate a new Service Key for the Places API

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• ServiceKey: Set this to your Foursquare Service Key obtained from the Developer Console.
• XPlacesApiVersion: (Optional) Set this to the API version date. Defaults to 2025-06-17.

Example APIKey connection string

Profile=C:\profiles\Foursquare.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_personal_access_token';

Establish a Connection

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API 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.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
...
odbc_close($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 Autocomplete WHERE Query = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Autocomplete WHERE Query = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('abc'));
  

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT ,  FROM Autocomplete WHERE Query = 'abc'");
  

Process Results

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Foursquare data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT ,  FROM Autocomplete WHERE Query = 'abc'");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
 echo $row[""] . "\n";
}

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Foursquare data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Autocomplete WHERE Query = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('abc'));
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 Foursquare-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.