Natively Connect to Postmark Data in PHP

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

Postmark uses server API tokens to authenticate requests. Each Postmark server has its own API token, which controls access to messages, bounces, templates, and statistics associated with that server.

To obtain your Server API Token, log in to your Postmark account and navigate to the server you want to connect to. Go to API Tokens under the server settings and copy the token labeled Server API token.

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

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Postmark Server API Token. This value is sent as the X-Postmark-Server-Token header on every request.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\Postmark.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings="APIKey=your-server-api-token"

Connecting to Postmark

Once the authentication is configured, you can connect to Postmark and query data from any of the available tables such as OutboundMessages, Bounces, and Templates.

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to Postmark 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 Bounces WHERE  = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.

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

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.

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

Process Results

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

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