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Get the Report →Natively Connect to MongoDB Data in PHP
Create PHP applications on Linux/UNIX machines with connectivity to MongoDB data. Leverage the native support for ODBC in PHP.
Drop the CData ODBC Driver for MongoDB into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build MongoDB-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to MongoDB data, execute queries, and output the results.
Using the CData ODBC Drivers on a UNIX/Linux Machine
The CData ODBC Drivers are supported in various Red Hat-based and Debian-based systems, including Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, CentOS, and Fedora. There are also several libraries and packages that are required, many of which may be installed by default, depending on your system. For more information on the supported versions of Linux operating systems and the required libraries, please refer to the "Getting Started" section in the help documentation (installed and found online).
About MongoDB Data Integration
Accessing and integrating live data from MongoDB has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:
- Access data from MongoDB 2.6 and above, ensuring broad usability across various MongoDB versions.
- Easily manage unstructured data thanks to flexible NoSQL (learn more here: Leading-Edge Drivers for NoSQL Integration).
- Leverage feature advantages over other NoSQL drivers and realize functional benefits when working with MongoDB data (learn more here: A Feature Comparison of Drivers for NoSQL).
MongoDB's flexibility means that it can be used as a transactional, operational, or analytical database. That means CData customers use our solutions to integrate their business data with MongoDB or integrate their MongoDB data with their data warehouse (or both). Customers also leverage our live connectivity options to analyze and report on MongoDB directly from their preferred tools, like Power BI and Tableau.
For more details on MongoDB use case and how CData enhances your MongoDB experience, check out our blog post: The Top 10 Real-World MongoDB Use Cases You Should Know in 2024.
Getting Started
Installing the Driver Manager
Before installing the driver, check that your system has a driver manager. For this article, you will use unixODBC, a free and open source ODBC Driver manager that is widely supported.
For Debian-based systems like Ubuntu, you can install unixODBC with the APT package manager:
$ sudo apt-get install unixodbc unixodbc-dev
For systems based on Red Hat Linux, you can install unixODBC with yum or dnf:
$ sudo yum install unixODBC unixODBC-devel
The unixODBC driver manager reads information about drivers from an odbcinst.ini file and about data sources from an odbc.ini file. You can determine the location of the configuration files on your system by entering the following command into a terminal:
$ odbcinst -j
The output of the command will display the locations of the configuration files for ODBC data sources and registered ODBC drivers. User data sources can only be accessed by the user account whose home folder the odbc.ini is located in. System data sources can be accessed by all users. Below is an example of the output of this command:
DRIVERS............: /etc/odbcinst.ini
SYSTEM DATA SOURCES: /etc/odbc.ini
FILE DATA SOURCES..: /etc/ODBCDataSources
USER DATA SOURCES..: /home/myuser/.odbc.ini
SQLULEN Size.......: 8
SQLLEN Size........: 8
SQLSETPOSIROW Size.: 8
Installing the Driver
You can download the driver in standard package formats: the Debian .deb package format or the .rpm file format. Once you have downloaded the file, you can install the driver from the terminal.
The driver installer registers the driver with unixODBC and creates a system DSN, which can be used later in any tools or applications that support ODBC connectivity.
For Debian-based systems like Ubuntu, run the following command with sudo or as root:
$ dpkg -i /path/to/package.deb
For Red Hat systems or other systems that support .rpms, run the following command with sudo or as root:
$ rpm -i /path/to/package.rpm
Once the driver is installed, you can list the registered drivers and defined data sources using the unixODBC driver manager:
List the Registered Driver(s)
$ odbcinst -q -d
CData ODBC Driver for MongoDB
...
List the Defined Data Source(s)
$ odbcinst -q -s
CData MongoDB Source
...
To use the CData ODBC Driver for MongoDB with unixODBC, ensure that the driver is configured to use UTF-16. To do so, edit the INI file for the driver (cdata.odbc.mongodb.ini), which can be found in the lib folder in the installation location (typically /opt/cdata/cdata-odbc-driver-for-mongodb), as follows:
cdata.odbc.mongodb.ini
...
[Driver]
DriverManagerEncoding = UTF-16
Modifying the DSN
The driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties. Additionally, you can create user-specific DSNs that will not require root access to modify in $HOME/.odbc.ini.
Set the Server, Database, User, and Password connection properties to connect to MongoDB. To access MongoDB collections as tables you can use automatic schema discovery or write your own schema definitions. Schemas are defined in .rsd files, which have a simple format. You can also execute free-form queries that are not tied to the schema.
/etc/odbc.ini or $HOME/.odbc.ini
[CData MongoDB Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for MongoDB
Description = My Description
Server = MyServer
Port = 27017
Database = test
User = test
Password = Password
For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).
Establish a Connection
Open the connection to MongoDB by calling the odbc_connect or odbc_pconnect methods. To close connections, use odbc_close or odbc_close_all.
$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC MongoDB 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.
$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC MongoDB Source","user","password");
...
odbc_close($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 restaurants WHERE Name = ?");
Execute Queries
Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.
$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC MongoDB Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM restaurants WHERE Name = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('Morris Park Bake Shop'));
Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.
$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC MongoDB Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT borough, cuisine FROM restaurants");
Process Results
Access a row in the result set as an array with the odbc_fetch_array function.
$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC MongoDB data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT borough, cuisine FROM restaurants");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
echo $row["borough"] . "\n";
}
Display the result set in an HTML table with the odbc_result_all function.
$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC MongoDB data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM restaurants WHERE Name = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('Morris Park Bake Shop'));
if($success)
odbc_result_all($query);
More Example Queries
You will find complete information on the SQL queries supported by the driver in the help documentation. The code examples above are MongoDB-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.