LINQ to Quickbase Data

This article illustrates using LINQ to access tables within the Quickbase via the CData ADO.NET Data Provider for Quickbase. To achieve this, we will use LINQ to Entity Framework, which facilitates the generation of connections and can be seamlessly employed with any CData ADO.NET Data Providers to access data through LINQ.

See the help documentation for a guide to setting up an EF 6 project to use the provider.

1. In a new project in Visual Studio, right-click on the project and choose to add a new item. Add an ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
2. Choose EF Designer from Database and click Next.
3. Add a new Data Connection, and change your data source type to "CData Quickbase Data Source".

4. Enter your data source connection information.

   User Authentication Method

   To authenticate with user credentials, specify the following connection properties:

   1. Set the User and Password.
   2. If your application requires an ApplicationToken;, you must provide it otherwise an error will be thrown. You can find the ApplicationToken under SpecificApp > Settings > App management > App properties > Advanced settings > Security options > Manage Application Token.

   User Token Authentication

   To authenticate with a user token, specify the following connection properties:

   1. Set UserToken and you are ready to connect. You can find the UserToken under Quick Base > My Preferences > My User Information > Manage User Tokens.

   Below is a typical connection string:

   User=user@domain.com;Password=password;Domain=myinstance.quickbase.com;ApplicationToken=bwkxrb5da2wn57bzfh9xn24
5. If saving your entity connection to App.Config, set an entity name. In this example we are setting QuickBaseEntities as our entity connection in App.Config.
6. Enter a model name and select any tables or views you would like to include in the model.

Using the entity you created, you can now perform select , update, delete, and insert commands. For example:

QuickBaseEntities context = new QuickBaseEntities(); var sampletable_1Query = from sampletable_1 in context.SampleTable_1 select sampletable_1; foreach (var result in sampletable_1Query) { Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} ", result.Id, result.Id); }

See "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation for example queries of the supported LINQ.