Using the CData ODBC Driver for Placid in PyCharm

The CData ODBC Drivers can be used in any environment that supports loading an ODBC Driver. In this tutorial we will explore using the CData ODBC Driver for Placid from within PyCharm. Included are steps for adding the CData ODBC Driver as a data source, as well as basic PyCharm code to query the data source and display results.

To begin, this tutorial will assume that you have already installed the CData ODBC Driver for Placid as well as PyCharm.

Add Pyodbc to the Project

Follow the steps below to add the pyodbc module to your project.

1. Click File -> Settings to open the project settings window.
2. Click Project Interpreter from the Project: YourProjectName menu.
3. To add pyodbc, click the + button and enter pyodbc.
4. Click Install Package to install pyodbc.

Connect to Placid

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. See the Getting Started section in the CData driver documentation for a guide to creating a DSN on your OS.

Placid uses API Key authentication to control access to the API. API tokens are project-specific and can be obtained from your project settings on placid.app.

Using API Key Authentication

To obtain your API key, log in to placid.app, navigate to your project, open the project settings, and generate an API token from the API section. Note that each API token is scoped to a specific project.

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

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Placid project API token.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\Placid.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_project_api_token';

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData API Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Placid
Description = My Description
Profile = C:\profiles\Placid.apip
AuthScheme = APIKey
ProfileSettings = 'APIKey = your_project_api_token'

Execute SQL to Placid

Instantiate a Cursor and use the execute method of the Cursor class to execute any SQL statement.

import pyodbc

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for API};Profile = C:\profiles\Placid.apip;AuthScheme = APIKey;ProfileSettings = 'APIKey = your_project_api_token';')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT ,  FROM Collections WHERE  = ''")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
  print(row., row.)

After connecting to Placid in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to Placid data as if it were a standard database. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this tutorial, please contact us at [email protected].