Viewing Scrapfly Data in RAD Studio Data Explorer

Embarcadero RAD Studio provides a development environment for Delphi and C++Builder applications. With the CData ODBC Driver for Scrapfly, you gain access to live Scrapfly data within RAD Studio, abstracting the data into tables, views, and stored procedures that can be used to both retrieve Scrapfly data. This article will walk through connecting to Scrapfly using the Data Explorer.

Configure a Connection to Scrapfly

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.

The Scrapfly API uses API Key authentication. The API key is passed as the key query parameter on every request.

Using API Key Authentication

Your Scrapfly API key is required to create a connection. To obtain your API key:

1. Log into your Scrapfly account at scrapfly.io.
2. Navigate to Dashboard and select API Keys.
3. Copy your API key (begins with scp-live- for production or scp-test- for the test environment).

After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Scrapfly API key.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\Scrapfly.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';

Connecting to Scrapfly Data Using Data Explorer

You can create a simple application for displaying Scrapfly data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for Scrapfly and a new VCL Forms Application:

1. Open the Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand FireDAC.
2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
3. Click Add New Connection.
4. Enter a name for the connection.
5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for Scrapfly.
6. Back in the Data Explorer, expand the views for the connection.

7. Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a view (for example: Account) onto the form.

   
8. Select the AccountView object on the form and set the Active property to true.

9. Right-click on the object, bind visually, and link everything (*) to a new control (TStringGrid).

   

10. Arrange the TStringGrid on the form and run the application to see the Account data.

    

Related Articles

Below you can find other articles for using the CData ODBC Driver with RAD Studio, Delphi, and C++ Builder.

• DataBind Controls to Scrapfly Data in C++Builder
• DataBind Controls to Scrapfly Data in Delphi
• Build a Simple VCL Application for Scrapfly Data