How to Connect to & Open Hacker News Data in Microsoft Excel
The CData ODBC driver for Hacker News uses the standard ODBC interface to link Hacker News data with applications like Microsoft Access and Excel. Follow the steps below to use Microsoft Query to import Hacker News data into a spreadsheet and provide values to a parameterized query from cells in a spreadsheet.
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.
Connecting to HackerNews
The HackerNews API (powered by Firebase) is a public API that requires no authentication. You can connect and query data immediately without any credentials.
After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:
- AuthScheme: Set this to None.
Example connection string:
Profile=C:\profiles\HackerNews.apip;AuthScheme=None
You can then work with live Hacker News data in Excel.
NOTE: In recent versions of Excel, Microsoft Query is not visible by default. To enable visibility, Navigate to Options > Data and check From Microsoft Query (Legacy) under the Show legacy data import wizards section.
- In Excel, open the Data tab and choose Get Data -> Legacy Wizards -> From Microsoft Query (Legacy).
- Choose the API DSN. Select the option to use Query Wizard to create/edit queries.
- In the Query Wizard, expand the node for the table you would like to import into your spreadsheet. Select the columns you want to import and click the arrow to add them to your query. Alternatively, select the table name to add all columns for that table.
- The Filter Data page allows you to specify criteria. For example, you can limit results by setting a date range.
- If you want to use parameters in your query, select the option to edit the query in Microsoft Query.
To set a parameter in the query, you will need to modify the SQL statement directly. To do this, click the SQL button in the Query Editor. If you set filter criteria earlier, you should have a WHERE clause already in the query.
To use a parameter, use a "?" character as the wildcard character for a field's value in the WHERE clause. For example, if you are importing the TopStories, you can set "=?".
- Close the SQL dialog when you are finished editing the SQL statement. You will be prompted to enter a parameter value. In the next step, you will select a cell to provide this value. So, leave the box in the dialog blank.
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Click File -> Return Data to Microsoft Excel. The Import Data dialog is displayed. Enter a cell where results should be imported.
- Close the Import Data dialog. You will be prompted to enter a parameter value. Click the button next to the parameter box to select a cell. Select the option to automatically refresh the spreadsheet when the value changes.
