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Automate REST Integration Tasks from PowerShell


Are you in search of a quick and easy way to access REST data from PowerShell? This article demonstrates how to utilize the REST Cmdlets for tasks like connecting to REST data, automating operations, downloading data, and more.

The CData ADO.NET Provider for REST is a standard ADO.NET Provider that make it easy to accomplish data cleansing, normalization, backup, and other integration tasks by enabling real-time and bidirectional access to REST.

ADO.NET Provider

The ADO.NET Provider provides a SQL interface for REST; this tutorial shows how to use the Provider to create, retrieve, update, and delete REST data.

Once you have acquired the necessary connection properties, accessing REST data in PowerShell can be enabled in three steps.

See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation to authenticate to your data source: The data provider models REST APIs as bidirectional database tables and XML/JSON files as read-only views (local files, files stored on popular cloud services, and FTP servers). The major authentication schemes are supported, including HTTP Basic, Digest, NTLM, OAuth, and FTP. See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation for authentication guides.

After setting the URI and providing any authentication values, set Format to "XML" or "JSON" and set DataModel to more closely match the data representation to the structure of your data.

The DataModel property is the controlling property over how your data is represented into tables and toggles the following basic configurations.

  • Document (default): Model a top-level, document view of your REST data. The data provider returns nested elements as aggregates of data.
  • FlattenedDocuments: Implicitly join nested documents and their parents into a single table.
  • Relational: Return individual, related tables from hierarchical data. The tables contain a primary key and a foreign key that links to the parent document.

See the Modeling REST Data chapter for more information on configuring the relational representation. You will also find the sample data used in the following examples. The data includes entries for people, the cars they own, and various maintenance services performed on those cars.

  1. Load the provider's assembly:

    [Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFile("C:\Program Files\CData\CData ADO.NET Provider for REST\lib\System.Data.CData.REST.dll")

  2. Connect to REST:

    $conn= New-Object System.Data.CData.REST.RESTConnection("DataModel=Relational;URI=C:/people.xml;Format=XML;") $conn.Open()

  3. Instantiate the RESTDataAdapter, execute an SQL query, and output the results:

    $sql="SELECT [ personal.name.first ], [ personal.name.last ] from people" $da= New-Object System.Data.CData.REST.RESTDataAdapter($sql, $conn) $dt= New-Object System.Data.DataTable $da.Fill($dt) $dt.Rows | foreach { Write-Host $_.[ personal.name.first ] $_.[ personal.name.last ] }

Update REST Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.CData.REST.RESTCommand("UPDATE people SET [ personal.name.last ]='Roberts' WHERE Id = @myId", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add((New-Object System.Data.CData.REST.RESTParameter("@myId","10456255-0015501366"))) $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Insert REST Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.CData.REST.RESTCommand("INSERT INTO people ([ personal.name.last ]) VALUES (@my[ personal.name.last ])", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add((New-Object System.Data.CData.REST.RESTParameter("@my[ personal.name.last ]","Roberts"))) $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Delete REST Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.CData.REST.RESTCommand("DELETE FROM people WHERE Id=@myId", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add((New-Object System.Data.CData.REST.RESTParameter("@myId","001d000000YBRseAAH"))) $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()