Viewing Google Spanner Data in RAD Studio Data Explorer



How to view Google Spanner data in RAD Studio Data Explorer using the CData ODBC Driver for Google Spanner.

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

Configure a Connection to Google Spanner

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.

Google Spanner uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you can use the embedded credentials or register an app with Google.

See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

Connecting to Google Spanner Data Using Data Explorer

You can create a simple application for displaying Google Spanner data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for Google Spanner 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 Google Spanner.
  6. Back in the Data Explorer, expand the tables for the connection.
  7. Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a table (for example: Customer) onto the form.

  8. Select the CustomerTable 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 Customer data.

Related Articles

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

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Google Cloud Spanner Icon Google Spanner ODBC Driver

The Google Cloud Spanner ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live Spanner Cloud databases, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Google Cloud Spanner like you would any other RDBMS - read, write, and update through a standard ODBC Driver interface.